Black Metal
by RazieliumGuardian
Summary: A demon is sent to test the strongest being on earth... A new student is making an impression at Jenny's high school... A war is coming, and it will deside the fate of mankind... T for extream fantasy violence. *The chapters get better as you go along*
1. Surface Mission

**Black Metal**

By: Devon Baxter

**DISCLAMER:** I do not own any characters except for Damion. The characters (Aside from the one labeled previously) and settings belong to Nicolodian.

The time has come to see if the world was ready for the apocalypse. And in order to do so, we were to send one of us down and test the strongest being there. No body in our militia volunteered, so sadly, they selected me to go to Earth. I must say that going wasn't all bad. The skies were clear, the sun was welcoming, everything was so clean and beautiful… Hell, it even smelled clean. I guess demons like us have been missing out.

Anyway, it all started when my commanding officer, General Zillex, called on me to discuss the plans for Earth, as it doesn't have much time before the apocalypse, and we need to have the inhabitants there prepared for the worst.

"You called for me, sir?" I said behind the door to the his war room.

"Yes, yes. Come in,"

I slid in and shut the door. "Have a seat," he said calmly. I did so.

"So what's this meeting about?"

"Damion, I need you to go down to Earth and evaluate the strongest inhabitant there. I want you to test this individual whether it be human, non-human, male, or female to the fullest extent of these required fields"

He slid a chart down to me.

"Sir, I don't think I'm capable of pulling this off. First of all, nowadays, priests are getting smarter, there are more exorcists about the world, as well as some qualified demon hunters, not to mention that I stick out like a sore thumb out there, and, on top of all that, I won't last too long up there. We are legally only allowed to stay up there for twenty-eight days. That won't be enough time!"

"Nonsense, you're one of the best. You'll do fine. We even found the one who you are to test. We also took care of the whole 'stick out like a sore thumb' thing, and the area has only one priest" he reassured me.

"But what about-"

"Your going Damion, and that's an order, soldier"

Crap. He had to bring up the whole listen to your commanding officer. I realized then, that I had no choice in the matter.

"Sir, yes sir" I said depressed.

"Excellent! I will send you your assistants on this project and your equipment momentarily. In the mean time, you should prepare to surface. Dismissed."

I was about to leave when he stopped me to add in one last bit of information.

"Wait, one more thing."

"Sir?"

"Be honest on your evaluation, and show no mercy when you get to the combat portion of the test. Combat will last from four p.m. to six p.m. Earth time. Never let it end early and never let it end later than said time. You may leave now."

I saluted and left the War room and proceeded to the Gateway to my destination.

"Heading to the surface, are we?" said the gatekeeper sternly.

"Official business." I replied to him.

"I know. General Zillex informed me already."

"So, will you let me though?"

"You will proceed… when your assistants arrive which is in three… two… and… one."

A short looking gremlin walked up with a suit bag in his hands.

"Greetings Damion. I'm Bizke, your assistant for this project."

"Now you may go," the keeper said.

He opened the mammoth sized gated of the underworld and let me pass.

"Happy trails," He said sarcastically.

"Bite me," I said as I stepped though.

* * *

On the surface, black smoke poured out of the ground on top of a hill over looking the city, Tremorton just entering dawn. Me and my assistant rose out of the dark smoke and walked off. The smoke soon disappeared leaving no mark of it's existence.

"Ok, The general gave me orders to assist you in black-ops, a.k.a., stealth," Said the stubby gremlin.

I turned to the demi-demon in annoyance, "I know what Black-ops mean. But why that?"

"Haven't you even read your mission instructions? It clearly states you have to seek out your target, which is Jennifer Wakemen, learn all you can about her for the next week, which includes going to her school, attending her classes, etc., and then you must put together a series of tests which will evaluate these fields." The gremlin hands me the clipboard the General showed me. I guess I forgot it there and he was ordered to give it back to me.

I skimmed though the clipboard.

"Combat efficiency. I have to fight her?" I read on, "Reaction Timing. Intellect. Na-na-na… Moral Value? What the hell does that mean?"

Bizke shrugged. I brought out a hammerspace cube and slipped the board into the tiny device.

"No matter. But how am I going to do this? I stick out like a blue stain on a white shirt."

"General told me to give this to you." He tossed a digital watch at me.

"How is this supposed to help?"

"Put it on and find out."

I did and, lo and behold, I looked like a sixteen year old in pure white jeans, a pure white shirt torn at the sleeves and bottom, giving it a tough but cool look, and a perfectly built human body with raven black hair.

"I think I see what you mean. I look perfect"

"Almost perfect." He said almost distressingly.

"What are you saying?"

"Look!"

He held a hand mirror to my face and showed me. The camouflage hid everything from human sight, except for my third eye, which looked like a giant scar on my forehead whenever it closed in the camo.

"That's going to pose a bit of a problem…"

"Not to worry, I always come prepared." He dug out a plain black toque an tosses it to me.

I put it on. "Well? How do I look?"

"Convincing. But do you think you can pull this whole "sixteen year old human" thing off?" he said.

"Shouldn't be too hard."

"Good. Your first day begins now…"

The sun then peaked over the sea and hills to the west of the Tremorton.

"Beautiful…"


	2. I'm Begining to Hate Gremlins

It was Saturday morning 8:36 am earth time downtown Tremerton. The disguise was working perfectly. I was blending into the crowd. There were a few criticisms made by some of the locals shouting such remarks as "Get a life, goth boy" or "You suck!", but I simply ignored them. I had a task to complete, and none of these pitiful humans are going to get under my skin and cause me to lose focus of my objective. I trekked down the streets, hands in my pocket, observing the structures they made and the lives they lived. I soon came across a strange trio of companions. A young human boy along with a larger, more mature looking male human. Along with those two was what looked like a young-adult female human, but with a few differences. For one, she had pale white "skin", or a substance similar. She also seemed to be unfazed by the hot morning, unlike the humans traversing with her.

They passed me and none of them took a second glance at me, except for the strange female. I thought nothing of it and pressed on, observing what was to be my home for the month.

Then a voice started calling in my head.

"Boss, BOSS!" It said.

"Bizke. Where-?!" I spotted another group of teens approaching me, so I ducked into an alleyway to prevent myself from looking like a freak in a humans eyes speaking to no one. "You nearly ruined my first impression on being human! Speak to me when I'm not near anyone."

"Sorry sir."

"Where are you?"

"Oh, ahh… Hum, lesse… Halfway across town."

"What? That's impos-" I cut my sentence short, "How'd you do that?"

"The watch sorta acts like a spiritual two way radio. I speak to you, and no one can here me but you, and you speak to me, and only I can hear you from here. Unfortunately, anyone near you can hear you talking to me, IF they happen to be in the same area as you and same goes for me."

"Ok. Got it. Why did you want to speak to me?"

"Oh," said the inquisitive little gremlin on the other side of Tremerton, "I just wanted to let you know that you passed Jennifer Wakemen, the one your supposed to test, not to long ago."

"THAT was her?" I peered around the corner of the alley and spotted her crossing the street with the two male humans walking with her. "She's not even human!"

"General Zillex said, and I quote, 'I want you to test this individual weither it be human, _non-human_, male, or female to the fullest extent of these required fields'. Sir, I may not be your commanding officer, but I know that your ass is on the line, and if you abort this mission, you will be paying for it for a good long time."

I sighed. The demi-demon was absolutely right.

"Now quit griping, and go on with the mission. You just have to last 27 more days. Hell, you might even enjoy it."

I sighed again. "Fine. Damion out."

I walked out of the alley way and continued me look around town.

-----------

Sunday afternoon, 5:47, and I still wasn't looking forward for the next month. Bizke called me to an abandoned warehouse to discuss school accommodations.

"I was never informed that I had to participate in the humans learning facility," I said upstarting in anger.

"It's called a school. That the correct term"

"I do not give a damn."

"For the sake of the objective!"

"I'm beginning to hate you…"

"Ok, first off, special order from Underworld Marketing," He said as he put the list of items in a black dufflebag, "Two everlasting pencils, one everlasting eraser, three pens, one red, one black, one blue, a ruler, and, you may not be needing this, but a scientific calculator."

"Anything else?" I said cooling down from nearly destroying Bizke right then and there.

"Your posing as a teen," He said observantly, "So you will need teen male items such as these…" He brought out a stack of CDs and put them in the hammerspace cube along with a CD player. "I think your set."

"I think I'm gonna kill you when I get back to the underworld…"

He brought out two more things. "I also got a few 'special' things for the combat portion of your test you will give XJ9." He brought out a weird gauntlet and a really, REALLY big sword labeled with the Japanese symbols of fire on it.

"That's not the... How in hell did you get those?!"

He stuffed them both into the hammerspace cube. "I had to pull quite a few strings and call in quite a few favors to get these… You better use them well!"

"No need to worry about that," I said smugly.

"Now, all we have to do is wait… school starts at 8:45. Be there at 8:00 to sign in and get your locker. You mission truly begins tomorrow."

It was possibly the longest wait for tomorrow I have ever had.


	3. Knowlage

Monday morning, 7:46 am. The birds were chirping, the sun had risen out from behind the hills and the ocean in the distance, and the air was crisp. I had already started my trek towards the human's learning facility, or as they called it, their "school". Down the street, the citizens of the little town of Tremerton opened their shops and service stations, waving to each other and giving hearty hellos to whomever that may walk by. I was no exception.

"Hello there, young man!" a deli shopkeeper said to me.

I was still not very accustomed to such things but I waved back and smiled anyway. I kept on walking down, pack slung over my shoulder, watching everything around me. I had a feeling I would be needing to know the surrounding area fairly well. Fighting in a familiar area can give one an advantage in combat.

I heard a low rumbling sound, and watched as a gelatinous beast was flung from behind a line of buildings and into the neighboring park. Following that, Jenny flew out after that.

"Great… she can fly too…"

As everyone was running for their lives, crying for help and screaming in fear, I watched the fight, taking notes on her strategies in combat. They were as brutal as they were graceful. Very odd. The target tended to rely on her super strength, than the incredibly powerful weapons she used from time to time. I could exploit that…

It looked like she was winning the fight, but then something caught me off guard. The thing spat something at her, a green glob of a sort, that pinned her to the ground thoroughly. It laughed maniacally, and didn't have the gaul to try and finish her. Instead, it oozed towards the city and began to terrorize the people. This concerned me. I knew what it was doing. It would destroy everything and everyone in her presence. I could not stand and simply watch anymore. I decided to take things into my own hands.

Ducking down into a dark ally, I pulled out the Nightmare-Zeta gauntlet, put it on, dropped the backpack I carried, deactivated my camo which included taking off that ridiculous black toque, and flew after the creature, ready to tear it apart before it could harm anyone. It began to pick up speed, as if it were fleeing from me, almost knowing I was going to try and destroy it.

I cut it off at an intersection. The biomechanic gauntlet I had on, now pulsating with life, morphed to an accommodating device. Black, razor sharp claws attached to a chain shot out of it and grappled the thing before it could start its mass destruction. With all of my supernatural strength in me, I yanked back, attempting to bring it closer to me. Instead, I ended up ripping a large chunk out of it's slime like body, and splattering it against the butchers shop. It cried out in anger, and turned to confront me. At least now, it was more fixated on something other than harming the humans.

It was a fair distance away from me still, but with a mighty swing, it stretched out it's arm and punched me, sending me backwards. It did little to harm me, but it was rather annoying.

I sped back towards it, avoiding another flying fist of goo, had the NZ morph once again into a laser compound and fired a round at it. The beam of blue light that shot out and struck the creature divided into several more electrical beams, bouncing off the walls of the buildings and returning to the target they were intended to hit. I could hear it cry out in pain as I changed the NZ once again into a closer ranged weapon. A curved edge blade, serrated at it's blunt side, spawned from the tip, wired with black and blue veins and capillaries. I charged at it, and began to rip it to bits. Green globs of ooze flew everywhere, spattering against the many buildings. By the time I was finished, the thing had stopped functioning.

The fight was over rather quickly, but only because I chose to do away with the creature using one of the most powerful bio-weapons our kind has ever created. It morphed back unto it's standard form, pulsating slowly, as if it were sighing for relief.

I could hear the sound of jet engines approaching, and sure enough, the blue and white robot arrived at the scene. The target was frozen in shock, or something, I couldn't tell which. Believing I was a threat, her arm transformed into a cannon and she aimed it at me. I was about to tell her that I mean no harm, even though that would be a bit of a lie, when I heard my watch beep. I realized it was already 8:00. She looked at me puzzled, probably wondering why I was wearing a watch.

I decided to take off, before she would start asking questions I couldn't answer. Not at this point and time anyway. I levitated off the ground, and flew back to the ally that I left my "school" supplies in. I put the gauntlet back into the hammerspace cube, and re-camouflaged myself. In the distance, I could hear the sound of those jet engines again. She was following me, but by the time she got there, I was already blocks away.

At 8:15, I finally arrived, after losing myself in the city a couple times. The building was teaming with an abundance of life as many of those that either resided inside it, or outside it, lived out what seemed to be the best years of their life. I could hear the sounds of young human beings conversing with each other, some about matters that didn't make much sense to me. The sight was extraordinary to me, as it is never so… happy back in the Neither realm.

The doors were thick, heavy, but never felt so alive. I opened them and stepped into the halls, propelling myself into my mission. I would never regret looking back…


	4. Smarter, Better, Faster, Stronger

"This place is absolutely magnificent!" I said unwittingly out loud. Many who were out in the halls stared, but I didn't mind them. They weren't important. I looked around as I walked though the crowded hall listening to the various conversations over topics of something called "fashion" or of latest electronic entertainment devices. Rarely, I would hear the topic of what they called "homework". Apparently, it was something they were forced to do, as I concluded this by the tones in their voices. If I were to blend in, I would have to look all these up, so I wouldn't blow my cover.

I approached one of them in an effort to try to find my way around.

"Pardon me. Could you tell me where the office is?" I asked him. He was a strange looking one, not like some of the others. He looked to be more of the outcast of this sub-society. Some-what messy black hair, brown jacket, slouching, and seemed to lack self confidence.

"Oh, sure thing! It's just down the hall. Make a right, then a left, and then it should be just five doors down. You can't miss it." He said rather kindly.

"Thanks."

"By the way, my name is Sheldon." He grabbed my hand and shook it. Though he _SEEMED_ to lack self confidence, it did not stop him from introducing himself.

"Please to meet you… uh, I'm sorry, but I cannot exchange pleasantries at this moment. I have much to do here and so little time." I wrenched my hand free and began walking off.

"NEW HERE, HUH?!" he shouted after me. I didn't reply to him, simply because I was in a rush, now that the time was 8:25.

I located the office, thanks to the help of the Sheldon's directions. Walking in, I found that this place was very quiet, compared to what lay outside the doors behind me. The clock ticked boldly, along with the sound of computer monitors humming and keyboard keys clacking with the help of the various secretaries typing away on them. I walked up to the front desk,

"May I help you?" one of secretaries said.

This is where the lies of my identity were established. "Uh, I'm new to this school. Just moved here from, uh… Canada… and I'm staying here for a month…"

"Any paperwork?"

"Uh…"

"I'll take that as a no. Normally, you are to have a couple forms to fill out by you and your parents and or guardians… but because theirs something about your eyes that just says, 'I'm an honest person.' I'll make an exception."

The secretary handed me a sheet of paper and a pen.

"Just fill out the information below," she said, "and give it back to me."

I filled out the info, using my name for the first name box, filing in a fake address, false number, and false emergency contact list (as if I needed any). I handed it back to the secretary, but she handed it back to me.

"Uh, what's wrong?"

"You haven't filled out your last name."

I read it again and saw the box I missed. I looked up at the clock and saw time had just skipped ahead another ten minutes.

"Damn it!" I muttered under my breath. Looked back down at that sheet, I wasted no more time, and ended up writing down the most ridiculous last name in existence out of desperation.

I handed the sheet back, and got a snicker in return.

"What?" I implied to the secretary.

"You're last name's AMOEBOID?"

No turning back now…

"I… guess so…"

The secretary looked at it for another moment before she took an ink stamp, and stamped the word APPROVED on the sheet.

"Welcome to Tremorton High, Damion Amoeboid…"

I already began to hate myself for writing such a stupid name down.

"Here is your coarse list," she added whilst handing me another sheet of paper, " your locker number and the combination, and the books you will need for your classes." The secretary concluded while handing my a much smaller slip of paper with two different sets of numbers on them and a small stack of books.

I stepped out of the office and located my locker. Oddly enough, it was locker triple 6. The only number I hated to understand it's cliché. Sighing, I opened it up and posted up the schedule on the inside of the locker's door. I removed the hammerspace cube from my pack, which now contained the NZ and the "Cerberus' Claw" blade, the CD's I was given to help me blend in, and the device used to play those CDs, and placed it on the top shelf of the locker.

Hearing the bell, I closed and locked it and began to head to my first class.

"Room 107, History…" I walked into the classroom and saw rows of teenagers chatting up a storm, oblivious to my existence. All for the better. I needed to blend in, not get noticed.

I spotted an empty seat. I took up the opportunity in taking it, as I felt it would have probably been claimed by someone else later. Unwittingly, I ended up sitting just one row across from the target. What a stroke of luck! Now I can study her a little more efficiently.

An adult walked into the classroom. It was one of those "teachers" that worked at this school

"Settle down class, settle down." She said. The whole room went from a storm to a murmur. "I have a couple announcements before I start today's lesson. First, Chad, Adam, detention for the both of you. Lunch hour."

"What did we do?" one of the boys at the back of the room exclaimed.

"Bumper stickers are fun to have on ones car, but when it promotes profanity that could get you pulled over by local authorities, it's not as fun."

"Damn."

"Second, class. We have a foreign student coming from Canada to stay here for a couple weeks. Damion, would you like to stand up and introduce yourself?"

I stood.

"Uh, hello?"

"Hi, Damion!" The class replied. I didn't know what else to say.

"Well, Damion, why don't you tell us about yourself?"

Here came more lies.

"Well, uh, I am from Canada, and I'm staying here for about a month… uh, for reasons dubbed classified by my, uh, parents…"

"Are your parents scientists, like Jenny's Mom?" one student in the far row inquired.

"Uh, yes, yes they are."

"Do they build robots?" another asked.

"Erm, no."

"Weapons?" another asked.

"I don't-"

"How 'bout inventing new devices?" a girl from the far end of the class asked.

"Somewhat." This was sounding like an interrogation. I began to get nervous. If they kept on like this, I might say something I don't mean to say. Just then, the boy I met earlier walked in. I sat down, taking the opportunity of silence.

"Sorry for being late, Mrs. Zimmerton."

"That's alright, take your seat Sheldon."

He looked over to my location.

"Um, somebody already has my seat."

"You know the rule. First come, first serve. There's an empty desk back there." She pointed to a desk that was positioned beside those two boys sentenced to "detention" earlier. He hung his head and walked back there, blue and depressed. I wouldn't know why he was that way until much, much later.

"Ok, class. Today's topic as a classic, quite literally. Now, "She began to write on the black board, "Who can tell me who was the first discover America?"

The target put her hand up.

"Yes, Jenny?"

"Christopher Columbus in 1492."

"That is correct."

I put my hand up.

"Yes Damion?"

"That may be true in a sense, but Christopher Columbus did not really discover America, he ended up in Puerto Rico, and island that lay below Florida. This would become a territory controlled by the US. The first of the Spanish was Juan Ponce de León, who founded the actual country in 1513."

"Er, yes, that is absolutely correct. Now, can you tell me if they were the first Europeans to settle the continent?"

Jenny raised her hand.

"Yes Jenny?"

"The Spanish were indeed the first-"

"I'm afraid I must disagree," I said rather quickly, cutting her off. Their were gasps and murmurs skipping about the classroom, "Yes, they were the first to settle the country, but not to actually find the continent. The Vikings, about five hundred years earlier, settled the continent, however short lived it was. They were the first Europeans. And even before that, the first humans to find North America were the Aboriginal. Many theories exist about how they got here, such as the famous land bridge, they were actually living here form the start, sailed here by accident, or more recently theorized, "Island hopped" all the way here."

"Island hopped?" The teacher said.

"Yes. It would be where from one continent, they would gather some of their people, sail by boat to an island, settle for a 100 years or so, or until supplies on that island runs low, then move to the next island, and the next, and the next, until they ended up here, with an abundance supply of food, miles upon miles of land, and terrific hunting grounds."

The teacher grabbed a history book, and thumbed through the pages. She stopped, and laughed.

"Correct! Absolutely brilliant answers! Looks like you have a bit of competition Ms. Wakemen."

The target's expression was absolutely priceless. A mix of anger and embarrassment. Her effort was valiant, but she hasn't lived for twenty millennias. I chuckled, and sat back, watching the class, listening to their conversations, and planned for her next test. A test of endurance. P.E was the next class…


	5. Smarter, Better, Faster, Stronger Prt 2

History class was flying by. It felt like mere minutes rather than the hour suggested on the schedule. I watched the target with utter attentiveness. She seemed to have gotten over the overlapping corrections I set up a bit over an hour ago. Occasionally, I would scan the area, catching glimpses of whispers between good friends, the classroom artist ignoring the lectures enough to work on an image of fantasy and wonder, the more attentive students actually trying to learn from the instructor… it was something I would have never experienced if I never took up this mission. The way these young humans lived was simply remarkable in my eyes.

I looked back at the target, whom was one of the few who actually was paying attention, writing all needed to be written down, answering random questions from time to time about things like key details on the American revolution or the two generals on either side of the civil war, and other such things. I began to wonder why she was here. Why was she attending such a place when she already knew his information already? It was rather puzzling.

The bell rang, signaling the end of the class. Everyone got up and began to leave. I followed, lest I look suspicious.

"Remember to study tonight! There IS a test tomorrow as soon as you get here!" the instructor announced to the departing class.

Murmurs of disgust skipped about as the teens in the room emptied out into the halls. The humans retreated to their lockers to retrieve books, to check their schedule, and occasionally get something to eat. Some of them didn't even bother going to their own and instead walked over to another's locker, to chat with the owner of that particular space of storage. I had no interest in interacting with anyone at the moment, so I simply went over to my own, opened it up, and stashed my bag inside.

The warning bell wen off, and I saw a quick change of pace in the "students" as they cut conversations shorter in order to stay on the deadline. A they rushed by, I would ask them where I could find the gymnasium, but none would answer, it was as if I didn't exist…

Then that Sheldon human happened to walk by as I asked another of the student body if they could tell me the location of the "gym" was.

"Hey Damion! You looking for the gym?"

"Uh, yes. Yes I am… Hey, wait a minute. How do you know my name?"

"Mrs. Zimmerton called out your name to answer the question about the first inhabitants of the US."

"Oh, right. Forgot about that…"

"I still don't know how you were able to correct Jenny… she's so smart… so pretty"

"What?"

"Oh. Nothing, nothing. You looking for the gym? Just follow me, I'm going there for my next class, too."

"Thanks. Your saving me a whack of trouble."

"No problem, Damion."

He lead me straight to my next destination. A massive room, big enough to house several thousand weapons with enough room left train at least a hundred soldiers. The ground was painted with highly complicated but well symmetrical lines, all different colors, and going in all different directions. There were two hoops hung on either end for what I would later find was for a game called "Basketball". About 48 teens, including me, in a sense, and Sheldon, were here. I could see the target in the distance talking to a red haired boy. I heard a heavy sigh, and realized it was coming from Sheldon, whom was starring at the target as if he were in a deep trance. At that point, I began to understand some of the things regarding his behavior, but not enough to classify it properly.

A new instructor, male, and with the build of Hercules, marched in and did something that caught me off my guard. He brought up what was called a whistle and blew, hard, nearly causing my eardrums to shatter.

"GAHHH!! DAMN! What in HELL?!" I yelled out, which was thankfully overlapped by the loud sound.

"ALRIGHT, MAGGOTS, LINE UP ON THE BLACK LINE NEXT TO ME!!!"

They all did as they were told, except for me. I stayed put, stupefied by what was going on. The current instructor seemed to take offence to my unwitting disobedience. He marched over to me, red in the face.

"SO! WE HAVE A JOKER! I DON'T TAKE TOO KINDLY TO JOKERS!!!"

"Uh sir?" someone at the far end of the line said, "He's new here. Maybe you could cut him some slack…"

To my surprise, it was the target who was sticking up for me, even though her efforts were futile, as the meat headed instructor decided to have some fun.

"New, huh. Well, we'll see how new he is once we break his spirit in a little game I like to call… DODGEBALL!"

"What's dodgeball?" I asked.

"Dodgeball is a game where two teams are pit against each other in a match of violent supremacy! NEW BOY, your team captain, so are you Ms. Wakeman, since you just HAD to interrupt me. Everyone else, number yourself off. Ones go on Mr. Wakeman's side, twos on newbie's side."

I was rather surprised that everything was going according to plan. That oaf of an instructor has set up my test for me, eliminating the need to do it myself.

After the class was split in half, the meat head of a teacher bellowed out orders to line up against the walls behind us. As we did this, he brought out a large sac of big red rubber balls. He pulled out said balls, and lined them up across the width of the gymnasium.

"ALRIGHT YOU MAGGOTS, listen, and listen well. I don't repeat myself. This is a modified elimination round Dodgeball. If your hit by a ball, you're out for the round. There are no restrictions on where you get hit, so if you're hit in the head, it was fair game, and your out, period. You can block a shot with another dogeball, however. Catching the ball does not eliminate an opponent player, nor will it bring back a team mate. If the ball hits the ground before it hits you, you are not out. If it bounces off a wall and hits you… I'll make an exception. Wakeman's team cannot go into newbie's half of the gym. Newbie's team cannot go into Wakemen's half. First team to eliminate every player on the opposing side wins. This is a one round game. ARE YOU READY MAGGOTS!"

Every one stood silent, reeking with fear or something similar in regards to the instructor. The rules were helpful, but he was really beginning to arouse my ire.

"DODGEBALL!"

Everybody on either side of the playing field ran to the center and grabbed what they could. I hung back for the moment, watching how the game was put into practice. The oaf of an instructor was right about it being violent. Red rubber balls flew everywhere, hitting various targets. Some of the "victims" that got into the line of fire and were sent off the field were reduced to a crying mass.

In my unmoving state of psychosis and tunnel vision, I failed to see an incoming projectile. Being what I am, however, gives me the advantage to see without my eyes. Just as the red ball got to a critical distance towards my face, I caught it with my right hand, mid flight, and in reaction, returned the fire. The child I retaliated against was on the floor not a moment after, dazed, confused, and throbbing with pain in his cranium. The whole class stopped in fear and in awe. The silence was looming and dreadful.

I could hear questions move between the students, breaking the silence. Questions such as, "What happened? I blinked and I missed it.", "How did he move so fast?", and "Is that speed even possible."

"HEY!" the physical education instructor bellowed out, "I didn't say the game was over yet!"

Everybody scrambled about, collecting red balls and tried to form their own individual strategies. I found myself in a peculiar spot. Now that they knew I was good at dodging, they were aiming to take me out. The onslaught began.

In my direction, red balls that have brought pain towards many children who have played this game prior to now were spiked towards me. I grabbed the closest one in mid air and began batting them away from me, smashing them to and fro, advancing closer to the center line. I got within two meters from the center line, and leaped high into the air. Everything seemed to go in slow motion in that moment as I catapulted the "dodgeball" towards a hapless victim a meter and a half below me, just standing at the edge of my half of the playing field. Their was a defining thump, as he fell over like wheat before a scythe. I landed at the line, dangerously close to crossing it. Stepping back, I felt time resume it's normal speed, and with this, I also acknowledged the resuming onslaught of red rubber balls all aimed to make my head spin.

I let my demonic combat instincts take over as I ducked, spun, dodged, back arched, jumped, and even slid to keep the projectiles away form me. I was reluctant to grab another dodgeball in retaliation, and aimed for a group. I got exactly what I was looking for. I launched the ball at a cluster of my game opponents, and, my god, it was a beautiful sight. It hit one, and began ricocheting off of them all, causing them to topple over like dominos. I had little time bask in my own skill, as there were still some opponents left, including the target and that red haired teen male she was talking to earlier. All of my team mates were eliminated, leaving me standing alone. There were all aiming to take me down now. The odds were still in my favor, though.

I dodge rolled out of the targets line of fire, while collecting another dodgeball, readying my self to knock another down a peg. With an effort of will and speed, I dived out of the way of many other attempts at taking me out of the game and threw the ball in my hand into the opposite wall, which bounded back, and smashed the red hair boy, knocking him out cold.

"BRAD!"

Some of the students at the sidelines went in quick enough to pull the red haired human out of the dodgeball zone without getting pelted in the crossfire. I chuckled lightly as I began to pick the rest of them off with bank shots. They all went down rather quickly. All of them, except for Jenny Wakemen, whom I let alone so I may have this situation to myself.

I could see anger and hate in her artificial eyes. It was rather amusing. We stood, waiting for each other to make the first move. I faked, causing her to react, and pick up a dodgeball. I deliberately hesitated. She ran up closer to the center line and fired the dodgeball like a rocket launcher at me. I stood my ground as the little ball of pain sailed towards me at high speeds. It took a half a second to reach me, and a split second for me to catch it, nonchalantly. The room gasped.

"What the…" I could hear the target say.

With a smirk, I snapped back into action, and propelled the ball at her. She ducked out of the way, and began running whilst returning the fire with her own dodgeballs. Diving and rolling, I picked up more projectiles, and retaliated, trying to strike the fast moving target. The fight was looking ridiculous, as red balls crossfired, ricocheted, and bounded. The both of us seemed to know where they were coming from as we evaded them at inhuman agility and reflex and were still able to retaliate. The students and even the instructor himself were struck with awe and stupefaction.

The game began to get rather repetitive, and in that mindset, I devised a plan to end it with her downfall. First, I would have to get her into a standing stalemate. Easy.

She fired her last round at me, and I catapulted mine at the incoming projectile. The two dodgeballs met with a sonic boom and returned to their respective senders. We now stood off, with an intent to win the game, and defeat our opponent for different reasons. The gym was silent, but the ultimate question in the air was loud and clear. Who would make the first move, and who would make the last?

Second, I had to make her vulnerable. I dashed out of the stand off and picked up another red ball. She did the same. I hesitated firing at her long enough for her to panic and fire at me. So predictable. In that instant of a moment, I ducked, and launched the first ball at Jenny, causing her to shift to the side. Not a half second after, I shot the other dodgeball at her close to the same direction as the first one, causing the target to dive out of the way.

Then, I moved in on the kill. She failed to notice I moved into a spot where I would be closest to more than one dodgeball. This would be the targets downfall. I picked up the one closest to me, and flung it at her as she was diving out of the way of the shot I fired.

There was no time, as it seemed to move slowly. The ball seemed to inch closer and closer with each agonizingly slow second. As I rose back to my maximum height, I could see XJ9's face as she realized that she lost. The dodgeball hit her hard enough causing her to slam against the wall with a defeating crash. The game was over. I was victorious.

I looked over to the instructor.

"Is that how you play the game?" I said in a quite cheeky and smart-ass kind of way.

The meathead of an instructor was speechless in an exemption of a few words.

"Yes. Game over. Hit the showers. Class dismissed early…" he wandered away, possibly dazed by the sheer surprise of the turnout for the game. I silently chuckled to myself as I headed for the exit.


	6. No Hard Feelings

Odd expressions on my classmates' faces were shown as everyone filed out of the gymnasium. It was like joy and utter confusion, with a pinch of vertigo and awe. I could hear them chatter about my "inhuman speed" and how impressive I was playing a game I never played before, according to what I told them. From what I witnessed in that game, I _have_ played it before, at least a certain variation, which was not for the fun of a sport.

I returned to my locker rather quickly to analyze my schedule and prepare my equipment for my next class. I hesitated for a moment. There was a half hour gap between the "Phys Ed." period and my next class, Chemistry.

"11:45 to 12:15…"

"HEY, DAMION!!" Some random person yelled from behind my back. I turned around, eardrums ringing, with an unpleasant look on my face. I thought it was that Sheldon child, so I was surprised to be facing someone rather "jock-like" or whatever they say to describe a very athletic teenager.

"Yes?"

"I just wanted to say that YOU are possibly _THE_ coolest person in this school! No one has ever beaten Jenny in **ANY** athletic sport, and you literally creamed her!"

"Hmm, is that so…"

I turned back around and shuffled my books around, preparing for another class. I began to walk away, poised with the edge of my locker door in my hand, ready to shut it again, when he stepped in front of me.

"Hey, hey, hey. Hold up. I'm getting to my point…"

He pulled a business card from his pocket and handed to me. I didn't bother to read it, as he explained the just of it, saying that he is the head of the student body, unofficially. This lead him to say things like he became a popular choice of friend because of appeal and his connections to a commercial building he called a "mall".

"According to the student body, I am the coolest one, and seeing as you have just proved yourself at being cooler, I am forfeiting my title to you. It's been a while since someone new took up the this privilege. All you have to do, to make it official, is to redo your image, 'cause, seriously dude, goth was last cool in the 19th century…"

I stood for a moment, pretending to think about his proposition. My answer was clear from the start. I didn't care to be this or that. I didn't want to be dubbed "cool". All I wanted was to get though this month in the guise I was in, do all I can to see if mankind was ready, and go home.

"You offer is rather generous, but I must decline. I have no desire to be what you call 'popular'. Step aside…"

I shut my locker door behind me.

"I have something a bit more important to do than discuss this topic any further…"

He stood there, profoundly dumbfounded as I walked passed him. I got rather far away form the jock, but was close enough to here him utter, "Damn, that kid is cool!"

--

I walked down the halls, still marveled by the way the way these humans lived, as if it were their own society. I looked at the clock, and realized time literally flew by, as it was now thew that gap of time between my last class and chemistry. The chatter of two rather annoying voices caught my attention. They were talking about that "fashion" something, as well as what they thought of the male populous in this school. I was rather surprised to hear my name being mentioned, and so I ended up eaves dropping on the conversation.

"What about that new kid, Damion? Seven or eight?" The taller one of the two asked.

"HE'S more of a nine in my book!" the other replied.

"Tiff Crust, haven't you forgotten? He's wearing a rather grim attire to be a nine!"

"But, he seems to give off this look that fits it! Besides, I think he's rather cute, Brit."

I gagged at the thought. Cute? What I really look like is far more warrior like than that extremity…

Jenny walked by, failing to notice me. Perhaps if I follow her discreetly, I can learn a bit about her. It would be rather sneaky, and underhanded, but at this point after beating her in front of her fellow classmates, I believe trying to be friends would be out of the question.

I heard _them_ take note of the target's presence.

"There's Jenny," one of them whispered, though I don't know which, "let's have a bit of fun…"

I watched the one called "Brit" stick out her foot, and let XJ9 trip over it "accidentally". I decided to manipulate the situation for my own good. She fell, causing the student body present at the event to laugh at her. I pushed past the even increasing crowd. I reached the center of the crowd where she was, and offered her assistance. She looked up at me, almost curious about who would try to help her. When XJ9 realized who it was, she was hesitant to give a physical reply.

I didn't have time for this. I knelt down, grabbed her hand, and helped her up. The whole hallway went dead silent. I let go of her hand. They all stared at me with either wonder or curiosity. I stared back at them with a hint of disappointment in my eyes. I thought this "sub society", I came to like so quickly, would be better than how they presented themselves currently.

"No hard feelings, eh?" I whispered to her.

As I left the crowd, they parted ways, without another thought. I could hear one of the instigators of the event curse under her breath.

Most of the populous were taking leave, obviously to the same place. I decided to follow them, to ensure that I don't arouse suspicion.

I was lead to a "cafeteria", witch was a human version of what we called a food forum. As a demon, eating was viewed as more of a want then a need. We never needed it to survive. The last time I ever ate was a special import fruit from Heaven to our world. Every so often, they would ship something to us, acknowledging our good intentions, saying thank you without physically meeting us down here. The last shipment was a couple crates of Ambrosia, a decadent fruit, grown from the meadows of Heaven, made to taste perfect, no matter what kind of tastes one has.

I looked around, saw the cooks were serving something called "Pizza" today. I didn't bother trying to try it, as the lineup was rather dense and long. I looked over to an empty table and went over to it, taking a plastic knife along the way.

I sat down, and looked about. All around me I could see groups of these children act the same way as they have been in the hallways since my arrival, with the exception that food is now available for them to take.

I slowly spun the knife vertically with my fingers on the table out of boredom. I was unaware that my target was approaching me from behind, along with her friends. I felt a tap on my shoulder. I put the knife down flat on the table, and turned to them.

"Hello." I said rather plainly.

"Hi, Damion," she said cheerfully, "Uh, would you like to, uh, ya know, hang out somewhere, later…"

I looked at her with a bit of confusion…

The one known as Brad stepped up. "Sorry about her, she's still a little jumbled up after that Dodgeball game you schooled us at. What she means was, would like to hang out with us after school at the mall?"

The opportune moment…

"Sorry, I've got to head strait home then…"

… denied.

"Although," I added, "I am free on Saturday."

"Cool! We'll see you then Damion."

They took off, but it was my target who looked back one last time, as it she were never going to see me again, before she too took leave, calling to her friends shouting "Wait up!". That was the moment I witnessed a robot blush for the first time.


	7. Villany and Diabolics

The next class approached rather quickly as I raced around to find classroom #243, which was labeled Chemistry. Despite the various maps in the school and the directions given to me by other students, most of which were horrendously incorrect, I could just barely find it… until I stumbled across that very classroom by accident. I opened the door and walked into a rather empty class, aside from the various flasks, tubes, cylinders, Bunsen burners, and beakers strewn about, and sat in whatever desk available. Then the bell rang, and the rest of the Chemistry students, along with the teacher, entered and sat at their desired seats. The target and Brad sat beside me.

"Ok, class," said the thin male instructor at the front of the room, "Since we have a new student, a new lesson plan will be called to order, but first…" He took out his own set of equipment, identical to the ones on our desks. "Let's go over some rules and guidelines. Rule #1: The objects before you are NOT toys, right Chad and Adam? Rule #2: Some of these chemicals are rather dangerous, so always listen to my instructions and do not, under any circumstance, look though the top of flasks and tubes, do not ingest any chemicals in this lab, do not accept a dare from Chad or Adam…"

The class chuckled, except for me…

"And, if you spill something, report it to me FIRST. Desks can be replaced, not students… Rule #3: I do not allow any headwear inside my classroom. So Damion, do you care to remove your rather out of season toque?"

"I'd rather not…" I replied sternly.

"And why not?"

"The end result isn't so pleasant, and I'll end up putting it back on my head anyway…"

"Try me."

"Fine…" I bobbed my head down removed the winter cap, letting my disguised raven black hair out, ruffling it with my hands, before I rose my head back to eye level. The whole classroom gasped.

"Oh, my…" a baffled student was able to utter. What they saw was a rather large and noticeable scar running vertically down my forehead.

"My boy, what happened to you?"

"It's a long story, and I'd rather not say right now." I let the silence sit for a bit before I said, "May I return my toque to it's proper place atop my head?"

"Yeah," said the instructor, "the rule can be bent for you… only because of that. I'm sure whatever he went though to get that was life threatening so to the rest of my class, don't go out and get injuries like that so you can wear hats. I don't want to end up having a class of three or four by the end of the year."

As the tension in the class broke, the students began murmuring to themselves again, stating how "bad-ass" I must be, or that I must be the coolest person alive. The teacher started writing down notes for the class.

"Alright class," He said as he wrote the lesson plan for today on the board, "We're going to make our very own controlled black holes."

Black holes? Technology here advanced farther than I anticipated, I thought. Boy that was an eventful class…

--

The school was shut down for the rest of the day, due to a very uncontrolled vortex being unleashed by the very two that had a reputation for trouble. It took a team of scientists, vortex specialists, and Jenny to contain and destroy the tear in the fabric of physical existence. Chad and Adam were handed compound detentions for putting the school in serious danger and Jenny was congratulated for her efforts to save the school. I was already in town during the climax of these events, as I felt these catastrophes were rather over blown compared to what will be here in the near future. I just hoped they will be ready…

"HEY, DAMION! WAIT UP!"

I almost recognized that voice, but the face immediately gave it away. The Sheldon kid followed me here. I stopped and let him catch up to me out of a gesture of kindness. He reached me, short of breath, just barely able to stand up. From the looks of it, he seamed like he was running for a while.

"What do you need, Sheldon?"

"I… (pant) I just wa… (pant) was going… (pant)" He tried to say, rather exhausted.

"Stop. Take a couple deep breaths…" He did just that. "Now, tell me what you want, and be quick, I need to go somewhere important."

"And where would that be?"

"Not for you to know."

"Ok, well, I was going to ask if you wouldn't mind coming over to my house. You seem like a pretty smart guy, and I need help with this little uhm… "project" I'm doing to impress Jenny."

I stared at him for a moment, pretending, once again, to contemplate a decision I already knew the answer to. I had plans.

"Sorry, Sheldon. Not today. I'll be rather busy just getting used to my surroundings. It's a bit difficult to properly adjust when you just hopped a country only a short time ago."

"That's true. Well maybe another time?"

"Sure, why not?"

"Alrightey then! See you later!" He turned an trekked down the opposite direction. I stood there, and just chuckled to myself. I just realized why Sheldon was acting so strange when it came to the target.

"Damion. Damion. Are you there?"

I dove back into an alleyway, out of sight and mind, and replied to the voice.

"Bizke. What do you want?"

"I was going to ask you how your first day with the target went. And who was that human you were talking to."

"That was a Sheldon. A rather peculiar human adolescent to say the least. As for my first day, I convinced her I was a friend, despite the situations on which I have defeated and humiliated her. She asked me to accompany her today, but I had to decline that."

There was a silence, then, "What the hell were you thinking?"

"Don't worry your stubby head, I re-scheduled it for Saturday. As I say, _'half the fun is to plan the plan'_."

"Oh, good then. For a minute there, I thought you were just going to try and make a challenge of this whole ordeal."

"I fear, Bizke, that challenge won't be an issue. It's hard enough to blend in around here, and I have a terrifying feeling that it will just get much harder. On top of this, I have a foreboding sense of urgency that someone in this town is going to try something horrendous."

"Well, I hope you only have deal with that later on, when you're a bit more accustomed to the area. For now, we should think up some stories about the 'scar' you have and find a better place than this crude and old warehouse to be your false home. One that is out of sight and reach from human curiosity."

I thought for a moment, and that's all it took.

"What about that island just about a mile off the coast of that beach we saw when we first arrived."

"Good idea. Now we just need to get there…"

"Which should be easy, seeing as you can just warp there and that I can just walk over the water or fly, or something." I said cutting him off.

"AND, if anyone gets curious, make up a story on why you live there."

"Again, rather easy. I established a story amongst anyone who might be curious that gives them a good explanation."

"You sure?"

"What do _you_ think?!"

"Excellent. Head over there by eight, so we can plan your plan."

I heard that cheeky gremlin chuckle to his own pathetic joke. I was angry enough to kick someone's teeth in… lucky for me, I got my chance.

In the sky, I saw fearsome robotic entities heading south, probably after the Target. I chuckled towards the poetically perfect timing, and took out the hammerspace cube and removed, from it's infinite space, the black metal blade dubbed "Cerberus' Claw". I then turned off the camouflage, levitated up, dropped my backpack on the roof, and followed the potential threats through the skies.

--

They were all gathered at the towns square, making this little encounter more accustomed to my tastes. They surrounded the Target with rather unfair odds. One that seemed much less of a threat, who apparently was leading this party of brutish robots, was talking to her. Before I got into the fray, I hung back and listened to the conversation.

"I thought I squashed Vexus. You guys shouldn't be around anymore." She said with defiance in her voice.

"Alas, you are sincerely, if not a bit brutally, correct. Our poor queen has been lost to us, but you… you can insure her return. Join the Cluster, fulfill our prophecy, bring our queen back to the throne. The new queen is ineffective. She is too kind. We must bring back what we once had. We can forgive what Vexus did. It was for the good of us all, after all!"

"You zealots really believe Vexus was such a good leader? Since I over threw Vexus, I've been getting nothing but good condolences on her peoples behalf! They love Vega, plain and simple. I heard Cluster Prime was peaceful for the first time in over 300 years!"

"Ignorance and lies, my child. It is the work of VILLAINY that gives you these ideas of peace on Cluster Prime. Can't you see that?"

"The only villains I see here are you and your henchmen. Now, get off my planet before I whoop your butt!"

The Zealot leader sighed with a rather blank, almost cult, disappointment. "Such a harsh tone from what could have been our world's hero. Very well, If we cannot have you go with us peacefully, we will have to take you by force!"

The leader's henchmen transformed their arms into a massive cannon that could shoot God-knows-what. They aimed at her. She was out numbered. I entered the scene.

"I decide to take a walk around the town," I said directly to the group of evil machines surrounding the target, "… and I find a display of weakness right here in the town square. You brutes should know not to harass defenseless little girls…"

She shouted something, that I just couldn't make out, out of anger at me.

"Stay away from us human," said the leader, "these matters are no concern of yours!"

"Human? Buddy, you better take a second look. Ain't nothing human about me!"

The Zealot paused for a moment, looking at me with a sort of documentary curiosity.

"No, I guess your not. No vital signs, no heat, nothing. And you look more robotic than organic."

"Actually, I am more biological than I seem, just not the type you will ever witness…"

"What is your name, Child?"

I couldn't give out the name I used for my human guise, so I had to make one up on the spot. I used whatever popped into my head. Why do I pay so much attention to boxes of unknown goods?

"It's Xerox." I said, trying not to laugh at myself.

"Xerox, if you join us, we could "fix" your biological problem."

I drew my blade from the spider like appendages on my back that clutched it.

"How's this for an answer?"

Within a flash of speed and light, I was on the opposite side of the gathering, blade poised to look like it had just cut though something. The only thing was, it actually did. All of the henchmen, whom were still aimed at Jenny, began to fall away piece by piece from sudden perfectly strait edge slashes no thicker than a sheet of rice paper. All except for the Zealot and XJ9 were left standing. I made sure of that.

"Wh-wh-what h-happened?" the now groupless Zealot stuttered in terror. I walked over to him and grabbed him by his metallic throat.

"I happened!" I said ominously to him before casting him away as far as I could. He sailed to the neighboring forest and landed with a deafening thud.

I was about to take flight, when I heard her voice asking me to, "Wait!"

I turned to her.

"I just want to say… I could have taken them on! But thanks for the help anyway."

I pointed my black luster blade at her, startling her effectively.

"XJ9, you have been chosen by me to play a little game. Play it, and Tremorton will remain here for years to come. Refuse, and this town will be no more than a ruin. Look for me on main street, Sunday and 4:00. You better be there."

I laughed maniacally, for the fist time, and flew away from the scene, leaving her speechless in worry.

--

After a quick change in forms and hiding the Cerberus' Claw in the Hammerspace cube, I exited the alleyway and headed towards our new destination.

"All I have to do now," I said with satisfaction, "is to plan this plan most complex."


	8. Cheer Up

I arrived at the edge of the outer most sanctum of the town. The sun had already begun it's beautiful twilight decent, casting orange and red across the pure blue waters before me. I was about to head over to my new destination, via walking over the water, that I established to dishearten the curious when I heard someone calling my name.

It was Brad, and he seemed to be concerned about something.

Not know, I thought coldly. I turned with a half hearted smile on my face.

"Hey Damion! I just wanna ask you something."

"If it's about my scar, forget about it. It's a long story and I don't have the time to tell it now. I'm already late getting home."

"Oh, heh, sorry… but that wasn't the question. Have you seen Sheldon come this way?"

I raised an eyebrow.

"Since that town square fiasco with that _thing_ showing up and challenging Jenny to a fight on Sunday, Sheldon began to act strange… You don't think…?"

"What thing?"

"This thing in red armor. It looked human, but those spider like arms coming out of it's back, the strange weapon, and it's 'mask' say something different."

"You seem to have been a friend of Sheldon for a while. Do you honestly believe those accusations?"

"Come to think of it, he doesn't seem to be the type to _fight_ Jenny. In fact, he acts strange everyday! Forget I said anything…"

"No problem."

The child sped off towards the town. I thought he would ask why I'm here or something while he was here talking to me. Maybe he knows I wouldn't let him know, which would be true.

I looked off to the island, and walked over the water towards my final destination for the day.

"What a day it's been…" I said to myself.

I didn't know HE was watching me…

--

The week prior to Monday went on the same way, with minor exceptions. For one, I completed the History test we had, in record time, beating the target by a minute and a half and scoring a perfect hundred. Another thing is that for Phys Ed, I wasn't permitted to play any of the games the instructor had set up for the class. Instead, he made me an honorary referee for the games. Just as well, the games were hockey, soccer, football, and more dodgeball, and I probably would have hurt someone, forgetting how fragile a human is. After the Chemistry incident Monday, Chad and Adam weren't allowed to attend the class for a month, and the teacher decided to start up a similar experiment, but with less dangerous materials. Math class, which I missed out on Monday, progressed like a simplified version of History or Chemistry. I did the required assignment early and waited for Saturday.

Being as old as I am, time can feel like it just flies by without a hint of slowing down, and so Saturday wasn't much of a wait…

--

I never realized how big a mall truly was until I actually got there. And I thought the SCHOOL was busy and vital. This place was carpeted with teens, adults, children, and the elderly of all shapes and sizes. It had all manners of shops, delicatessens, attractions… there was even several indoor waterparks, wonderlands, and carnival rides. I had no idea you could fit this much stuff in such a place!

"Wow," I was able to say in awe.

"Never seen a mall before in Canada?" Brad chuckled as he, the target, and a small boy no more taller than Bizke approached me.

"Where?" I said dumbly, "Oh, uh, no. Not really. My parents stuck us out into the country side for peace and quiet…"

"Why were you out there?" XJ9 said.

"For experiments and studies. They couldn't take the noise of the city they said to me." I lied tremendously. If the whole 'pants on fire' thing were true, I would be engulfed in flames!

"I can see that. Cities can be rather noisy. When I was 6, I visited this city called Townsville. Oh man, you should see what goes on over there!" Brad said as he was remembering what seemed like an exciting time in his childhood.

I chuckled, which was not of my own will.

"So, what should we do first?" Jenny said

Brad spoke up, "I say we should tour Damion here around the mall, so that if he decides he want's to come back here, he won't get lost ."

"But I wanna to go to Fruties Funpark!" said the small boy.

"Tuck, you were there just about every time I had to bring you with me… you can hold off for another week!"

"Nooo, I wanna go now! Or I'll tell mom you've been…"

"Alright, alright!" he said as he clamped his hand around Tuck's mouth.

"You've been what, Brad?" the target asked him with a smirk as if she were just about to learn something embarrassing that she could use to get him to do favors for her, free of charge. God, don't you just love extortion?

"Uh, nothing. Jenny, could you tour Damion around without me?"

"I guess so."

"Come on! Let's GO!!" said the small boy, tugging on his brother's arm.

"Thanks Jen! I promise I won't be long." He walked off with the small child leading him to a painfully happy looking indoor theme park, Fruties Funpark.

The Target looked to me. I looked at her.

"Well?" I said.

"I guess I'll show you around. I was really hoping Brad would be with us. I'm not very good with tours…"

"Start from the beginning and go from there…" That sounded corny, and had no idea WHY I said it, but she seemed to take that obvious piece of logic, and not laugh.

"Alright, uhm, this is the, uh…" she scanned her surroundings. "The sports department. Everything for ones sporting needs can be found here."

"How can you tell?"

"50/50 vision. An upgrade made by my mom, and besides, there's a sign that says sports department behind you."

I looked back.

"Just kidding. It's over there…" She pointed to the second floor around 50 meters away. I couldn't believe I fell for that.

"Heh, funny."

"Sorry," she said sincerely.

"Where to next?"

"Let's start form the beginning and go from there."

I frowned, "Are you making fun of me?"

"Come on!" She took off. I followed, still scowling, but at nothing in particular.

--

She took me though nearly all the mall in under a half an hour. First off from the sports section was an intersection. We went left into the arcade zone. She said something about coming back here and make sure no one has beaten her top scores. I thought nothing of it. Next was the hobbies department, filled with collector shops and 'new millenium' merchandise stores, which seemed rather last millenium, with all the medieval weaponry, spikes, skulls, crystal balls, and gothic decorative knickknacks. In any case, for some reason, those stores made me feel more at home. Next off was a foodcourt. She mentioned she never usually comes here, seeing as she never really has to eat, and if she tried, it would probably gum up her internal systems. When she asked me if I was hungry, I just told her a lie about the scar, in which the damage inflicted to my head had also cut my appetite in half. She asked me about how I got the scar, but I changed the subject, I still didn't know how I would explain it yet. We left the food court through a 'U' loop and walked into the 'fashion section'.

"Ohh, Damion. Could you wait right here? I need to go and check something out in that store over there." She pointed to this fancy looking store with a large assortment of clothing. She seemed rather excited.

"I have time. I can wait. Go."

The target squealed with a high pitch that would deafen a dog before she took off. I shook off the sonic daze in front of my eyes and in my ears before I sat down on a bench behind me.

Man, I thought, if she uses that pitch as a weapon on me during the combat tests, I'll have no chance…

A small boy with a messy set of black hair approached me. He looked rather skittish, but seemed to be brave enough to talk to me.

"Um, excuse me, um mister…"

"Damion."

"Mister Damion, I was wondering if you have seen my mommy. I don't know where she might be…"

"I'm sure she's looking for you too. I would love to help you… uh, what's your name?"

"Todd Casil…"

"Well Todd, I just moved here a week ago so I don't think I'll be much help.," The boy named Todd lowered his head in sorrow, "But, I'm sure if you go to that man," I pointed to a security officer, "in security uniform, he'll be of more help to you!"

The boy's hopes rose back up, "Thanks mister." And he disappeared into the crowd.

"Cute kid," I said, and it was all the more reason I had to make sure the target takes the test and passes.

There was laughter in the store Jenny entered, and as she exited, the laughing escalated. I got up, and she approached me with a scowl.

"Ooh, those, those, those… ARRGH!!" She grunged, failing to describe the taunters in the store.

"What?"

"THEM! It's bad enough I see those two everyday. Those Crust Cousins!"

I reached into my pocket, which was my hammerspace cube strapped to my side and disguised, and pulled out a seemingly innocent looking rock and tossed it inside the store.

"Just walk away…" I said with reassurance.

"What?" She said confused, almost immediately snapping out of the state of anger she was in.

I pushed her away form the store.

"Hey, what are you-?"

"Just keep walking, and they'll have what's coming to them."

"What do you mean?"

And suddenly, the seemingly innocent looking rock set off a firework display in the store, exploding again and again and again and again in three colors, with a multitude of different shapes and sizes. But it wasn't JUST colors and patterns that exploded out. Shock, fear, and screaming also abrupted out of the customers, especially from the two it was intended for. I chuckled, for you see, what would be a normal stone in the neither world actually has special and sometimes spectacular properties up here. The stone I threw was called an _**illiminatose tricoloras**__, _a stone when exposed to the light of humans would give off a fireworks display that is non lethal, and wouldn't technically burn. It seems dangerous, but that's all. It just seems that way.

"What was THAT?!" she exclaimed

"Something my mom made for me when I was younger. Don't worry, it doesn't do anything but show off fireworks up close without the danger of being incinerated." I laughed.

She too then laughed, nervously at first. The screaming in the background died out when the exploding stopped and was replaced with questions like, "What the heck just happened?"

I stopped laughing, "Heh he ha… So, where next?"

"Um, the electronic entertainment department, I think."

Human entertainment technology. This could help me blend in! "Alright," I said, "Let's go!"

"You don't have anymore of those… things, do you?"

"No, just this." I took out a rather strange looking small rock from my 'pocket' and gave it to Jenny. It looked like it had curved pockets of opal in the black stone. "Take it."

"What is it?"

"I call it a **_Lumeni__te_**. My dad found it while on a scientific business trip several years ago. Cover it completely with both your hands and look inside. What do you see?"

She did that, and gasped. "I-it's glowing?! Is this real?" She said astonished.

"Yeah. No one knows why it glows like that." The target attempted to hand it back to me. "Keep it, I still have a piece at home."

"Thanks," She said with a smile.


	9. Flatten and Hide

I followed her around the entertainment department, hoping to find something that could be of use, or at least of interest. The target stopped in front of a music store.

"You seem to be the type who likes music." She said to me.

"Sure?" I had no idea what else I should say. My God, trying to be human is hard. Well I knew it would be hard, but not this hard. Almost every chance they have, they ask me something, expecting I would know it.

"Then let's go!" She grabbed my arm and practically dragged me in. It was so sudden, I didn't have the time to think about resisting. The store was pumping with beats and melodies I have never laid my ears to. It was rather intoxicatingly compelling.

"Have a look around. I'm sure you'll find something that you'll like."

"Yeah, thanks…" I replied. I wandered off away from here looking though the assortment of music styles. Metal, Pop, Country, Rap, Rock… I then came across a section called 'The Best of the 20th Century'. I heard stories of the music that blossomed during that time period. Most of them were well while others, like one involving a guy named Charles Manson, were 'not-so-good'. I decided to give it a go. I grabbed one at random. There, on the package, just below the "Best Of" title was instructions on how to sample it here. The instructions said to swipe the case under a scanner nearby and listen though the headphones nearby. I did, and the first song that played was… no words could describe how I felt about it. I just loved it.

A piano and percussion started off the song, then the base guitar joined in the melody. Then the singer began.

"_**An Early Incarnation, **_

_**Of A Bad Day **_

_**I Got Up On The Wrong Side Again **_

_**The First Hours Crawl **_

_**Emotional Starvation, **_

_**We Throw The Words Away **_

_**Don't Wanna Swallow My Pride Again **_

_**The Worst Waste Of All **_

_**I Think I've Found My Way In, **_

_**I Found My Way Out **_

_**For Every time That You Live Your Life To Please **_

**_There's Always That Trace Of Doubt_**

_**An Early Incarnation…"**_

The target approached me from behind, and tapped on my shoulder. Not noticing her sneaking up behind me, I jumped and the headphones fell off my head which cut me off midway though the song. I fumbled with them in the air before I finally caught them.

"Having fun?" she said, being rather cheeky.

"Heh heh heh…" I motioned flatly and sarcastically.

"What'chya listening to?"

I looked at the track number presented on the scanner, and looked at the CD. Track #5 was…

"Flattened," I said, "by Mushroomhead."

"Let me listen."

I gave her the headphones. I wondered how she would here it anyway. She didn't have any ears, however, she probably has sensors placed where the ears should be. She listened for a while then gave them back to me.

"They sound cool. I like the mood and the lyrics. I wonder who sings…"

I began to walk away from her, moving towards the exit with the CD still in hand. I completely forgot they pay for things up here, just like home.

"Where are you going Damion? You still have to pay for that if you want to keep it." She said just before I was inches away from the door.

"Oh," I walked towards the cashier, "sorry."

The cashier scanned it, typed in some numbers and said, "6.94, sir. I see you have some taste in music, UNIKE EVERYONE ELSE WHO LISTENS TO POP!" That last remark seemed to be directed at the rest of the customers in the back.

"Yeah," I reached into my pocket and pulled out a hundred, one of many that Bizke gave to me, just in case, and said, "keep the change…"

"Wow! Thanks sir!" the cashier exclaimed in delight.

Jennifer Wakemen, who was rather stunned about what I just did, followed me out of the store after a few moments of just staring in bewilderment. "Wh-wh-why did you just… a hundred dollars… not even…" Her speech at the moment was jumbled up in thought, and rather comical.

"The day is going by to fast to wait for such remedial things. Besides, that cashier looked like he needed the money…"

I saw someone in run by in the corner of my eye. Normally, that wouldn't bother me, as everyone seems to run around in all different directions here trying to make each sale, but this was different. The person that ran past seemed to be trying to keep out of sight. I was able to get a glimpse of the persons eyes, and they were curious, determined, and looking right at me. I knew what I had to do. I handed Jenny the CD.

"Can you take this for a moment?"

"Where are you going?"

"I'll be back. I'll only be a moment."

"But- " she was only able to utter after before I disappeared into the crowd, leaving her behind to seek out my little spy.

--

I was catching up to the poor bastard. He was rather quick and agile for his look. He bounded over benches, dove under tables, took sharp corners, made shortcuts, even leapt off a second floor ledge just to make some distance away from me. But no matter what he did, I was catching up to him, I was catching up.

As a last resort, the spy ran into an 'employees only' room. Probably a boiler room. I chased after him. I got inside and watch him turn a corner and heard him grab onto a doorknob, trying to get it open. It sounded like it was thoroughly locked

"Heh, stop trying. I've caught you and that door sounds like it's locked tight! Now, tell me, why were you spying on…" I turned the corner and saw nothing out of the ordinary. No one was there, and the many locks, internal and external, seemed to not have been tampered with. This was rather strange. Even though nobody was there, I could FEEL that there was someone there.

I scanned the tight corridor.

"Hmph, well, I know you're here, so take note, if I find you spying on me again, I will make you greatly regret it. Got it?" Silence.

"Good." I left the corridor, and shut the door behind me. For some reason, I had a feeling I would catch this spy of mine soon, but I would never really keep my word.

--

I returned to the music store a short time later, after almost getting lost twice. The target was sitting on the bench waiting patiently for me to return. The CD I had bought was open. She was apparently listening to it. I snuck up on her and tapped her shoulder, making her jump.

"Having fun?" I joked, chuckling lightly

"Not funny…"

"You seem to enjoy it…"

She first scowled at me, then smiled. "I think I'll borrow this…" she said holding up the empty CD case, "for a couple days."

"Only if you're willing to rent it off of me."

"Why should I?"

"A hundred dollars is a bit much for just one CD."

"That's your problem."

I'll let her take this one. I had a feeling it would just go into a loop. "Ok, fine. But bring it back to me by Wednesday."

"Deal!" She said rather excited. She then asked, "So, why did you take off like that? What was so important that just couldn't wait?"

"Someone was spying on me for some reason, and I wanted to find out who… and why. I don't need this sort of stuff when I just moved here."

"Did you catch the spy?"

"Not really. I got him into a dead end, but when I turned the corner, he was gone. I knew he was still there…" I paused, thinking about what I should say next. "… but I had more important stuff to tend to, like hang out with you and your friend Brad."

"Well, it's just me right now…"

"Yeah… So," I got up, "where next? I passed another food court. Perhaps there's something that lays beyond it?"

"Not really." She said flatly, "It just loops around back to the Sports Section where we started at, or leads to that place…"

"That isn't very inventive." I said flatly.

"I know."

"So what are you and Brad doing tomorrow?"

"Well, I-" she cut herself off, "what do you mean?"

"It's nearly six o'clock. It should be about time this place would close up, like any other place that advertises and sells goods."

"Really? I didn't know we were walking around here for that long. I wonder what Tuck is putting Brad though…"

"Maybe we should go and look for your friend." I suggested.

"Don't you mean OUR friend Brad, Damion?" the target corrected.

"Yeah, I guess. Sorry."

"Then let's go find him!"

It didn't take us too long to track him down. We found him being forced onto a rather unsafe looking roller coaster, where his younger brother was standing on the sidelines, laughing. Brad was near the edge of loosing his breakfast when we got him off the horrifying ride. We left the mall promptly and began to part ways. I headed west, to my home on the island (or my hideaway said to be my home) while Jenny decided to take the red-hair teen and his brother home.

"See you tomorrow!" she shouted back to me.

"Later!" I chuckled.

The time was almost here. By tomorrow evening, the first test of combat will begin. For some reason, however, I felt a little disheartened over the events that would transpire then. I shook my head to dismiss those thoughts so I may focus on my objective.

The sun was setting, spraying a shower of orange to deep purple over the partially cloudy sky. The atmosphere was so calming, I couldn't help but start humming to myself as I walked to the beach.

_**For Every Time That You Live Your Life To Please **_

**_There's Always That Trace Of Doubt_**

_**An Early Incarnation…"**_


	10. Gonna Make You Give Up

Sunday, 3:06 PM. It was the end of my first week here, and it was time to keep my word I made to the target on Monday, lest I make myself look like a dishonest ass rather than an insidious villain (which was the only way I could confront her in combat). I did not know it yet, but today would be the day I would feel so low about what I was just about to do.

I headed over to main street Tremorton to see if she took my threat seriously, and sure enough, there she was, waiting. Tucker and Bradley Carbuncle were there too, probably to cheer her on. I walked over, pretending I had no clue why any of them were there in the first place.

"Hey guys, what are you doing here?" I asked them.

"Hey Damion. Remember that thing I told you about that challenged Jenny to a fight? Well, today's the day. Jenny told us he'll be here at 4:00…" Brad told me.

"I just hope he show's up exactly when he says and not just appear at the last minute like every other villain that promised to fight or vow revenge…" she said with a hint of disgust.

Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines…

"And we're here to watch her whoop his butt! I even brought the popcorn." Added Brad's smaller, black haired brother, whom actually brought out a bag up unpopped popping corn from his pocket. There was no way I could ask about THAT logic without getting an incredibly long and ridiculous answer. I hadn't the time.

"So, what are you doing here? Come to watch the fight with us? There's always room for one more."

"And there's enough popcorn to go around for everyone!" said Tuck who, by now, had a full popcorn making equipment set up around him. He had a ministove for Jiffy-pop, a miniature microwave for bag popcorn, a machine for singular popcorn kernels, and a block of butter and a bowl on an EZ-Countertop stand, with all different kinds of flavors and spices set beside the butter. "Just don't ask for Ketchup. I'm out of that…"

Really, I only took my eyes off of that boy for a second, and he already had so many things set up, which defied all logical reason.

Anyway, I looked at the time, and saw it was already approaching 3:55.

"Damn, I'm late…" I said under my breath.

"Late for what?" she said. Apparently, no secret whispered near her is a secret to her anymore.

I have to be careful about what I say around her, I thought. I said to her in response, "I only came down here to run a few errands for my parents. They said to be home by 4:00 o'clock… You get the idea."

"Ah, ok then. See you tomorrow!" she said sweetly.

"You too." I took off down the street, turned a corner and dived into a alleyway. I surveyed my surroundings to make sure nobody was here or nobody could see me. After that, I turned off my camo and took out the Cerberus Claw and Nightmare Zeta from my hammerspace cube that was strapped to my belt underneath my armor pads. I put on the NZ. It hummed with a sense of exhilaration and restlessness. I then placed my blade against my back and my spider like limbs held it there.

"Show time." I jumped up to the rooftops and leapt along until I reached the building behind her. I cleared my throat quietly, and started the mission.

"Fancy meeting you here." I said annoyingly. She spun around and looked up.

All she said in return was, "You!" which disappointed me. I expected a bit more, like a mini monologue about how she would fight me, defeat me, and make sure I never return. Oh well, beggars can't be choosers.

"Am I late?" I asked coyly. She stared up at me, saying nothing in return. "Well, then. Shall we get started?" I jumped down from the roof top to the street, landing softly on the pavement. Dust kicked up slightly, causing drama and tension to stir in the air. I drew the blade from my back, and held it off to the side. I pointed the NZ at her. The demonic entity within the biomechanical gauntlet hummed with anticipation. "You do know that you don't need to fight. You can just bow down to me and declare I'M stronger, and that'll be that… Though that may nullify our agreement on _they're _safety, it will definitely ensure yours. What say you, XJ-9?" I pointed to the civilians that were currently in the street with us.

This should sure shuffle her circuits, I thought.

"You're going to have to make me!" She got into a fighting stance as she responded to my false proposition.

"Alright. A fair fight it is." I teleported to her left side and whispered, "So then, how should you fall?"

She threw a right hook at me with enough force that could stop Cerberus himself from charging. But fortunately for me, I anticipated that, and teleported back to my original spot, and charged right towards her, blade at the ready, NZ charging up with energy… She shifted to the side to avoid head on collision, and succeeded, only because I wasn't intending to run her over. As I took a speedy U-turn, I aimed the Nightmare at her and fired. She ducked the one shot. Heh…

The shot hit a car behind her divided as it bounded off into 5 separate lasers, and began to continue bouncing off the walls of shops and the polls of signs and street lights. The lasers made no damage to what they hit, until they struck the target, with the force of a semi. She was in the air by now, being smacked and smashed by the incoming blue colored lines of light. I quickened to her location, leapt up to her, and swung the Cerberus Claw at her from below, sending her farther up into the sky at blinding speeds. I teleported to her just before she passed the lithosphere and grabbed her metallic throat. She grasped my NZ armor-plated claw around her neck, trying to pull it away, but I was simply stronger.

I whispered to her, "Had enough? Do you give?"

"Hardly a fair fight!" She said back to me in true defiance and anger, before I cackled wildly and sent us both screaming back down to Earth, back to main street Tremorton. I seemed to be enjoying this more than I should…

She hit the ground first. I made sure of that. The crater that was made nearly stretched across the width of the street. I leapt out, with the target still at hand, and onto the topmost part of a deli shop wall, smashing her once against it before jumping to the opposite side of the street, landing on a butcher shop's wall, and slamming her there too. I took back to the skies and threw XJ-9 back to the pavement street below. She hit the ground with a thud and bounced a bit, before she lay near motionless there, battered up and almost worn out. She attempted to get up, and I let her, before I charged up an energy ball shot, and flung it at her.

She was able to roll out of the way in the nick of time, and brought out her own weapons. The ball of energy exploded in the street behind her, making another crater in the pavement, but she didn't even flinch over the strength of it's force.

I floated back down to ground level half a football field away form her. I began to approach the battered hero, taunting her.

"You're determination," I said as cunningly sounding as possible, "is more than I have ever anticipated. Why won't you just give up? You can forget about them, live your own life. Travel across the galaxy. No one can stop you…"

She replied, tired but not without a sliver of valor, "No. Their lives are worth more than mine…"

"And why is that, XJ-9. Why do you value them so?" I was getting dangerously closer to her with every passing second as I spoke.

"Because," she said, "they are good people, and I won't let fiends such as yourself to harm them!!" She fired an explosive rocket at me. As it screamed towards me, I cut it in half with my blade in reaction, and the halves simply landed on either side of me, and fizzled out.

"Fair answer…" I replied before I quickened to her. My blade at hand was swung to her head, but the target ducked in time. She retaliated with a punch to my stomach, then an uppercut to my face which sent me arch backwards. Before I hit the ground, she grabbed my foot, circled my body like ribbon vertically across the air once and slammed my body back flat against the asphalt. The spectators cheered thinking she was winning. I flipped back onto my feet and pointed my blade at her as if that last attack didn't even faze me (Even though it WAS rather painful).

"Now I'm a little motivated!" I yelled before I rushed past her at the speed of light. I stood poised with my blade already finishing a slice just behind her. Confused, but still confided to defeat me, she spun around and threw another strike. I rushed past the target again, this time ending up in the air, blade motioned like it finished implementing a strong uppercut. I landed gracefully back onto the ground. She turned back around to me confused, trying to contemplate on weather I did that on purpose or that I simply missed. I was hoping for the confusion…

I love my time delayed rush attacks. They are my greatest of techniques, and I am prided in the Netherworld for my skill in using them, and it was for good reason. Jenny never had a chance.

By the time she figured out that I did the same thing to those wannabe villains, it was already too late. All of a sudden, she was knocked backward with the force of a mach 2 rocket, then knocked into the air with the same strength. She flew upwards fifty meters, dazed and damaged, and fell back to earth at my feet.

"Gonna give up?" I chuckled.

She got back up on her feet, stumbling, but still willing to fight.

"You're not going to win, even IF your will to do so is strong."

I ripped out a stop sign from out of the ground that was planted beside me, and I proceeded to thrash her over and over again, as she took one step backwards with every single strike. She blocked the first few shots, as best she could, but the blows were taking a toll on her arms and armor, exposing vital circuits and wiring, and soon she stopped defending herself. I stopped.

She stumbled backwards, dented, bent up, critically damaged, and almost had exhausted all of the fight out of her.

"I'm… I'm not gonna… let _**you**_… win." She got back into a fighting stance with one arm limp at her side, eyed half lidded, and almost ready to collapse.

If anything, I thought, at least she won't give up. I heaved back and flung the sign at her, which impaled her and sent her flying backward into a concrete wall. The sign stuck her there as it drove into her and the wall. I re-sheathed my blade and walked over to her.

"Let me?" I yelled to her, "You did everything but, and so, I congratulate you for that, however, as it still stands, I have won, my darling, and you…" She continued to struggle, loosing a bit more energy every time she exerted a small movement in defiance to the moment of her current and defeating situation.

With the last few ounces of her might she tried to pull the sign out of her, but it was no use. She didn't have the energy in her any more. I walked up to her, bent towards her, and whispered something in her artificial hearing system.

"You've lost," I said softly, "Don't fret though, this is all just a nightmare…"

Before I could here her internal system declare 'System Standby' (I guess a sleep mode to store any remaining energy when critically damaged to keep her power core or artificial life going) I whispered to her, "Sweet dreams…"

He eyes darkened to black and her eye lids closed over them. Her head tilted forward to it's limits, and then she became motionless. She had lost, but she had passed the first combat test.

I floated up in the air and exited the scene, leaving behind a fallen hero, a shocked crowd, and a torn up main street.

--

Back in the alley way, I placed the Cerberus Claw and the Nightmare Zeta into the hammerspace cube. I turned on the communicator deciding to give Bizke the update on the situation before hand.

"Bizke, it's me Damion, Respond."

"What is it?" barked the little gremlin from an undisclosed area, "Is it about the mission? Have you concluded your first test?"

"Yeah, the first test is over and done with," I said with some confidence, "The target proved to be more capable in handling a situation like my challenge than I have ever anticipated. I thought she would give up…"

"That's good news. Anything else."

"Yeah, I feel like scum…"

At that moment, I realized what I just said. I wondered where in hell that came from. It just blurted out from the bottom of my heart (or lack of) and the top my mind. I expected a quick reacting answer from my assistant but instead there was a long and awkward pause in silence. I began to feel worse.

Bizke finally spoke, but with hesitance in his voice, which was probably due to the immeasurable confusion of my statement, "Uhmm… We can talk about the details when you get back here. Bizke out."

I sighed at myself.

With nothing else on my agenda I proceeded to turn my camo back on so that I can return 'home' without the wandering eyes of the curious following me. As I did, a flash of light for a split second caught my eye from the other side of the street. The moment I assumed my alternate guise, I took off running towards it.

Across the street, I saw that spy, the one I saw in the mall. Oh, he was going to get it!

"You! GET BACK HERE!!" I yelled as I chased after him down the street. He pushed passed the people that crowded the sidewalks, who came in droves, in an effort to make distance between me and him. But I was catching up to him.

I've got you now, I thought as he turned a corner, but when I got there, he was gone. Vanished. Just like that. I stood there, in puzzlement. Every one else who turned the corner never saw the difference. Staring out into space for a moment or two, I figured that either that spy of mine was just a figure of my imagination, or he's a really good hider.

If the latter's the case, I thought, "Then I will find you…"

That incident made me forget what I said and what I felt earlier considering XJ-9 and her test… until I returned 'home', that is.


	11. Nightmare Embodied

I walked across the body of water straight to the island, keeping my concentration on every step I took until I reached the islands shore. This may have been my fifth time being here, but I really couldn't get over how beautiful this little land mass was, nor could I shake away the question on why no one has ever dared to be here. The breeze though the thick bush welcomed me and the grasses beneath my standard issue crimson soldier boots almost seemed to message the soles of my damned feet as I walked. It was like a bit of the legendary garden of Eden, right here tucked away on Earth, a mile or so off main land.

I also couldn't shake the ironic fact that a demon like me is treading this little piece of paradise. I chuckled rather loudly to my own horribly executed joke on how this could get me killed if I were still part of Hell's Legion.

I met up Bizke at the usual spot, a naturally occurring clearing in the center of the island. I sat down in front of the magically incarnated fire he prepared so we may discuss our current situation is a bit of comfort. The gremlin shuffled.

"Ok, Damion, tell me. What was that statement all about."

"What statement?"

"You've already forgotten? It was a rather hard to forget ODD one, that was. You said, and I quote, 'I feel like scum…'. Care to shed some light on what you meant? We don't need random occurring thoughts of self doubt during such a crucial mission such as this." He said sternly, pulling out a notepad to record anything I had to say.

"Well," I began, "actually, I have no idea where it came from, really. Something was tugging, where my heart should be, if I had one, and when you asked me was there anything else, I just blurted it our."

"Tugging… blurted… heart…" He mumbled as he wrote down what I said. He put away the notebook and sighed, before he said, "this isn't good."

"What?"

"Well, this is a very rare circumstance, isn't it. Once in a while, when a demon is exposed to so much human interaction, they begin to pick up a few things, one of them being human emotion. You demonstrated one of a set, sympathy."

He was right, this wasn't good, I thought. You see, demons have a completely set of emotions to go by. Usually very standard ones such as anger, joy, and common sense. Humans, and other such creatures with independent thought and feeling above our existence, have something much more complex. While this is a good thing for the most part, it can cause trouble for those only experienced with the basics. Something such as sympathy can cause huge problems for one such as I, especially during the heat of battle. A being inexperienced to such emotion could end up saying or doing something that could cause the being trouble, ranging from a little to death.

"What should I do?"

"There's no turning back now. Once you start, you can't stop it. You will develop them. You have no choice. During this time, however, you can try to slow the process. Be cold, avoid saying or doing anything that you may regret later, but, don't be too cold, you still have a mission."

"Right, so what your saying is the highly improbable has happened, and you want me to attempt the impossible?"

"Sure, if you put it that way." I sighed, "Hey, cheer up Damion. It's not all bad."

"It will be if I'm not careful…"

There was a pause, then the gremlin said, "You better get some rest, your next week of school starts in 12 hours, and you've had a tedious day today…"

Bizke got up and wandered away into the thickness of the green.

Sleep, I thought, sounds rather nice…

--

_I wandered through the mist, looking up at the sky form time to time as if I were waiting for something to appear, but no, it was just pitch back with stray bits of grey. It was as if black clouds had blanketed the world. Fires were around the ruined town, lighting my way to a building ravaged by the invading force._

_A soldier in grey modern warfare armor with a custom gas-mask and glowing orange goggles grabbed my arm firmly, as if he was not wanting me to go in. He said something about what was inside, warning me that whatever was inside was deadly, but I couldn't understand him fully to judge his words as true. Before he said another word, I could feel something in him stop. He let go of me and collapsed from a fatal wound in his chest. I went inside the building to see what was going on._

_Inside, the lights flickered profoundly and I could see something in the distance. It was a figure, a full seven feet seven inches tall, with a metallic tube running from its back to the back of its head, and was oozing something pitch black that covered the entirety of it's form. I noticed that on one claw it had an eye on in the palm of it's open hand, looking directly at me. I also noted the 'blacker than void' spikes that were erect from its shoulder blades. It turned it's head to face me. I tried to get a good look at it's face, but I then soon realized it had none, just ancient markings of a demon long since gone._

_It writhed, collecting its mass into a ball, then thrusted out a spear formed from its own ooze like body straight towards me._

_Somebody screamed._

--

I woke up from that frightening image that seemed to be just too real to be a nightmare. Breathing heavily, I tried to figure out what it meant. I tried to contemplate on how this related to reality, as all nightmares manifest from a worry of the manifester. But nothing seemed to fit. Nothing I am worrying about right now in any case. Then, almost all at once, something about it made me realize why it didn't seem like a normal nightmare.

It was too real…

--

**(AN: Short chapter. Deal with it!.)**


	12. Uncover the Truth

Monday, 9:34. It was during chemistry class while I was playing normal, you know, doing assignments, answering questions, and 'slacking off' in between, when I noticed something in the classroom was missing. I had no idea on who or what it was until someone from the back blurted out "Where's Jenny?"

For some strange reason, I became a little disheartened hearing those words. I hope I didn't kill her, I thought, cause… I had a reason why that would be a definite negative for me according to the mission, but it didn't seem so valid anymore. I slumped down into my desk, re-experiencing a once dead emotion to me, misery. Why I was like that was a mystery to me, at the time. I looked around the room to see if anyone was noticing.

No. No one noticed. But I noticed something else aside from the target's absence. Sheldon, whom was sitting in the back, because I took his seat a week ago and continued to do so throughout my stay so far (the seat beside Jenny), was glaring at me. His eyes were fixed to my direction. He didn't move. Nor did I, for a while anyway, until the instructor asked me about the many deeds of Napoleon Bonaparte that had brought a sense of nationalism to France, whether those deeds be good or bad. I turned back around and answered as quickly and as proficiently as I could before turning back to him, to see if he was still staring hatefully at me. I had no idea why he was so angry…

--

The class ended rather solemnly in my eyes. The absence of the target kept at my thoughts like piranha to a fresh kill. Walking down the halls filled to the brim with busy and rushing students felt rather empty today. The awe of the vast vitality I saw during my first week all but disappeared, too. I didn't seem to care anymore. Something was wrong… deeply wrong. I traveled quickly to my locker and placed my books back into that small place of storage. I stood there pretending to be doing something important when I really was just lost in my thoughts. Though _lost_ felt rather lenient at the time…

I never noticed him approach me from behind. In my traced state, he took my toque and ran. I instantly spun around and saw the thief which was, to my disbelief, that spy who evaded me twice. I wouldn't let him get away this time.

"GET BACK HERE!" I shouted at the top of my lungs as I took off after him, desperately pushing though the crowds. He was as quick as ever, but I quickened my pace, and began to close in on him. He ducked out into an empty hallway and sprinted off as fast as he could. I followed him with the speed of a juggernaut. I would catch him, and he would regret ever spying on me.

I lucked out when my spy lost traction on the freshly waxed floors just beyond my reach, giving me ample time to try to catch up to him. He scrambled to his feet and began fleeing once more. He was rather fast for a spindly looking creature…

He ducked into doorway and slammed the door on my face. I busted in after him not a second later. He reached a dead end, stopped and turned to me.

"Got you now, " I said, "You're going to tell me why you were spying on me, or am I going to have to make you tell me?"

"I won't tell you anything, and you can't MAKE me say anything!"

"Say's who?"

"Say's the guy who's not there!" he said. For a moment, I believed he sounded familiar.

He tapped something on his arm twice and all of a sudden, he vanished. I was absolutely dumbfounded…

"What the hell?"

Then there was a spark, and he reappeared trying to go around me.

"Oh damn…" the spy squeaked.

I grabbed him by the collar of his over coat and slammed him against the wall. With a quick motion of my free hand, I took my toque back, placed it back on my head, and removed his hat and tossed it aside. I wasn't ready to see who it was. The odd black hair gave away his identity

"Sheldon?" I let go of him and backed off. "It was you? Why?"

"Her! BECAUSE OF YOU SHE'S GONE! I knew you were bad when I saw what you really were last week! She gave you her trust! YOU SICKEN ME!"

"What are you talking about?"

"Don't play dumb! I know what you are. You are another grease-ball villain come to take Jenny down by gaining her trust, learning her weaknesses, and crushing her by exploiting them all!"

"It's not like that."

"Who are you working for? Hmmm? The Cluster? Some goon wanting to unleash an apocalypse upon earth but needed Jenny out of the way in order to put their plan into fruition? An evil organization bent on seeing anything that resembles humanities hope be destroyed for their own personal and financial gain so they can retire in the Caribbean?!"

"No! Let me explain."

"Then you work alone?! You're some super-villain travelling the world, eliminating anyone who tries to keep humanity at peace. That's it, isn't it?"

"No, Sheldon. I'm not an enemy."

"Then who are you, you foul, cretinous, son-of-a-"

"That's IT!!" I thundered at him while I removed my toque once again, "YOU WON'T LISTEN TO REASON? I'LL MAKE YOU LISTEN!! You really want to know who I am? Take a good look!"

I grabbed him once again and pulled him closer to my forehead, just so he could get a good look at what he was accusing. I opened my third eye, and stared deeply into his frightened, human eyes.

I dropped him. He fell flat on his butt, too terrified to comment on what he saw.

"Do I scare you? I'M JUST GETTING STARTED!!"

I raised my right arm in front of my face, reviling my watch, and I turned a knob on it, causing the camouflage over my true form to dissipate I loomed over him, thundering my voice so that he may listen and not dare attempt to interrupt what I had to say.

"I am Damion, high ranking Lieutenant in the Netherworld army. I command fear, respect, and total obedience over my soldiers. I have powers immensely beyond your puny human understanding. I can, at any given moment, destroy the world if I felt like it, but I have great respect over your race and your planet. I was sent her to test the strongest being above the surface in a series of challenges that are not only physically strenuous , but emotionally and mentally demanding as well, and it so happens that the one I must test is your emotional interest. My intention was never to try to shut her down. If it were, I would have done it within day one of my arrival. Something is going to happen soon, and we need to know if you are all ready. Billions of lives are at stake. It is against the rules for me or any of my kind to be exposed by a human, and the rules state that if I am ever uncovered by a human, for the sake of the rest of Earth, the one must die so that the rest may live, before that one can revile the truth!"

I loomed a little more over him, claws ready to rip something open, eyes glowing ice blue, inducing as much fear in him as possible. He backed up against the wall while still off of his feet and shielded himself with his arms in a futile attempt to defend himself. I sighed.

"But, I'm not going to do that."

Sheldon's eyes shot open and veered towards me.

"W-what?"

"I'm not going to harm you Sheldon, cause I _know _you won't ever try to expose me to the world and botch up a delicate and important mission like saving your race form extinction, now will you?"

He shook his head.

I lowered my claws and turned the knob on the watch once again to make me seem human once more. I then put on my toque and held out my hand to help him up.

Cautiously, he took my hand, and I quickly pulled him back up on his feet. He twitched, still frightened of me. I backed off.

"S-s-s-so yu-you are a d-… d-…" He said trying desperately not to have a fear induced nervous breakdown.

"A what? Spit it out. What do you think I am?"

"A… a… a demon?"

"How'd you guess." I said with a soft sarcastic tone.

"J-just a lucky guess heh heh…" he said, calming himself down

An eerie silence followed a beat, a gulp, and then he spoke with confidence.

"Why Jenny?"

"Excuse me?"

"Why does Jenny have to be smashed around like some tin can by you?"

"That wasn't my decision. I was just sent to do the job. I have no clue why I was picked to perform the test, or shy she was picked to take it. All I know is that if she fails, salvation for you all will stop dead in it's tracks..."

A pause.

"Yeah, it's not something one would enjoy thinking about. Good news is that she's passing with proficiency."

"What kind of tests are they?"

"They are tests of endurance, skill, strength, speed, intelligence, moral judgement, emotion, and combat. The details on these, however, are on a need to know basis, and you don't need to know."

I began to walk away, heading for the entrance to the hallways, to attend a class in order to keep up my identity façade.

"You really are telling the truth, aren't you?"

I stopped, and turned to him to answer.

"I abhor lying, Sheldon. If I am to lie, it would only be to keep humanity safe, which, unfortunately for me, is at a constant basis for this mission in these current affairs. But right now, I am telling you no lies, only because you know my identity and I know you will keep it a secret. So, you will never be lied to anymore, as there would be no point to it."

He sighed, "Painfully honest answer…"

"Too true, my friend," I said half heartedly, "Perhaps when we meet again, it will be on much lighter terms. I apologizes for putting you though so much anxiety. XJ-9 will be ok. She'll be back soon, I am sure of that."

I reentered the hallways and headed to the gym, leaving Sheldon behind.

She's got to be alright, I thought, She's just got to…


	13. Plot Holes

Tuesday, 12:13. I was in the cafeteria, sitting at the far table, trying to avoid being noticed. Though, being noticed was one of the things that came with being 'cool'. The teenage humans were crowded around me, asking me this and that; to join their club, to be their friend, to recommend them to an easy scholarship because my 'parents' were high class scientists (most of the students who asked this had below average scoring compared to the other few). I closed my eyes and tried to drown out the noise, remembering a lullaby from thousands of years ago, one that used to be sung by angels…

The adolescent who approached me a week ago came back with another one similar to himself, but more 'suave' and much more pretty-boy looking. There was something about him that wanted to make me re-arrange his face.

"So this is the one you were talking about, Dave?" the pretty boy said, nonchalantly.

"This is him. Damion, I want you to meet my cousin, Don Prima. HE'S the coolest in school."

"Oh… and what does this have to do with me?" I said trying to ignore them all.

"Well, I said I was the coolest one in Tremorton when I met you last week. Well, that was a lie. I dubbed you the coolest of the school. That was a mistake. BUT, a mistake we can fix. Don, my cousin, should we hand over the title to him? Your time will be up in a few short months anyway as your graduation is coming up, and he has greatly outclassed me… really, he's our only option, and a good option I might add..."

"Must I?" he said in the most arrogant fashion you could hear. I was striving off the urge to break him.

I opened my eyes and got up from my seat. I believed it was time to relocate, but no matter where I moved, they followed me like sheep.

Don's cousin Dave stepped in front of me saying, "You'll really never have another chance like this. Don't you want to be popular at this school? You'll have whatever you want, whatever you desire!"

"No," I said flatly and walked off.

As I walked off, I overheard Don Prima say, "Your absolutely right Dave. That kid _IS_ cool…"

--

I trekked down the halls, humming quietly to myself that lullaby we were given. I made sure only I could here it. The sweet melodies passed though my soul, calming my troubled spirit. We were never to do such a thing unless we had dire need for it. It was that time. In all of the 2 milleniums I spent on the netherworld armada, I never needed it more than I do now. I felt much better once I finished humming the final repeat of the chorus, and by that time, I had reached my locker.

I sighed, "Much better…"

"Much better what?" someone said sweetly from behind.

I spun around. It was the target.

"Jenny?" I said.

"Who else? The crust cousins?"

"Hah. I HOPE not!"

She giggled then replied, "Yeah, they would be bad news…"

"So…" said rather shyly, "what happened to you yesterday? You had your friends worried sick… especially Sheldon…"

"Well, I met up with this villain who challenged me to a fight on Sunday. I really didn't think he'd be too difficult to beat… I seriously miscalculated."

"What happened?" I said, pretending to be intrigued.

"That thing proved to be much stronger than I would ever anticipate. He… he wasted me as if I were made of aluminum. In my defense, I did get a couple of good shots at him, and I think they hurt him…"

No question, I thought rubbing my temple subtly.

"But he seemed to fight with the same amount of strength and stamina, regardless on whether or not I harmed him. Well, next time I won't let him do that. Next time I see that… 'creature', I'll give him more than he'd ever bargain for…"

"I see," I said plainly, "but that still doesn't explain your absence yesterday…"

"Oh, right, yesterday… well, at the end of the fight, I sorta blacked out. The last thing I remember was what that thing said to me before I went into sleep mode, and that really weird dream…"

"Robots dream?" That was something entirely new.

"Not really. I can, only because my mom installed a dream chip in the back of my head. It activates when I enter sleep mode. I ended up abusing it for some time and nearly destroyed the town, but I'm in control now."

"Cool. Anyway, as you were saying about what you last remembered."

"Oh yeah, that dream… Well, it was about this priest, he had a drill in his hand. He was fixing me, and then he drilled something into my head. Then I saw this nanobot. The moment I saw it, I woke up at home, one and a half days later, completely repaired."

"Creepy…"

"I know…"

"HEY JEN!" Brad called out at the other side of the hall, "Where have you been? We were starting to get worried about you."

"Do you want the long version or the short version?" she replied.

"Short version."

"Taking a dirt nap."

"Oh, okay. Well, I've gotta get to class, I get detention for being late again… Glad to see you're alright. That last fight scared me… we thought…" He stopped. I could hear his heart skip a beat. "Well, I best be going. See you later."

He took off in the opposite direction.

The target turned to me. "Well I should get going too. I'm already a day overdue in my studies. I don't want to upset any teachers."

She took off too, and as she did, I noticed something rather minute. Something so small, no human would ever really notice it without taking a closer look. It was a tiny hole in the back of here head. I had a bad feeling about this.

--

Later that day, I hunted the town, looking for Sheldon, asking just about everybody on his whereabouts. I ended up finding out where he lives when I talked to an autobody shop mechanic.

"Sheldon?" he said, "Yeah, he comes in here from time to time asking for any sort of scrap metal. Aside from building things we'll never really see in our lifetime, I don't really know what he does with the stuff, but that's none of my concern."

"Do you know where he might be?" I asked.

"He stopped in here not too long ago for spare wire, so my guess is that he's heading home."

"Do you know where that is?"

"Yeah, just head down to the residential district of Tremorton, and make a left. His house is the one with the garage with smoke coming out of it once in a while."

"Smoke?"

"Yeah. That spunky little inventor doesn't always make the most stable devices…"

"Thanks."

I took off running, straight to the residential part of Tremorton, and ended up finding the house quicker than I expected (there was a literal jet stream of black smoke coming out of the cracks of the garage doors. He must be tinkering with something…

I walked up to the door and knocked on it.

"Identify yourself!" he said in a commanding, yet geeky, tone.

"The one with the third eye."

"Oh no…" I heard him whimper, "Stay back! I have automatic security guns inside, if you break in, they will aim at you and fire without hesitation."

"Let me in Sheldon!"

"NO! You're here to kill me, like you said!"

"I said I _wouldn't_, that's the key word here, _WOULDN'T_, harm you. I need to talk to-"

"What if you changed your mind? I can't trust you. WHY should I believe you?!"

"Jenny may be in trouble."

I heard a click and a man sized door opened beside the car sized one. Sheldon poked his head out.

"Jenny? In trouble?!" he said with worry, and then in a more frightened tone, "Is this a trick."

"No tricks, Sheldon. I said I would let you live, (even though you broke the one rule that orders me to kill you. if you ever found out about my true identity), and I keep my word."

"Well, then what are you doing out there? Get in, get in! If Jenny's really in trouble, then we have no time to loose."

He swung the door open, and I stepped inside before he took a quick look outside, slammed the door, and locked it with all manners of security measures.

"Is that really necessary?" I said earnestly while taking seat on an old, dusty, draped couch.

"Ever since you came here, yes, yes it is. I fear for my life now that I know what who and what you are. I'm afraid more may show up and try to do what you refuse to do!"

"THAT was not my fault. And no one else will try that. What one of us decides when it comes to a human individual, it can never be overruled."

"Why should I believe you?"

"Look at it this way, If you were to die, you'd be dead right now…"

There was a long pause.

"See?" I said.

"I'm not…"

"Just go with it, Sheldon. I don't have time to convince you don't have a death sentence on your head."

"O-ok…" He said nervously.

"Now," I said, " I should give you the details on what's going on, shouldn't I?"

"That would help me figure out the best course of action, so yes, you should."

"Well, The only two things I know so far is that little 'feature' on the back of her head and her dream she had prior to her return."

"What feature and what dream?"

"Well, on the back of here head, there is a small hole the size of a fruit fly. It's rather hard to notice."

"And the dream?"

"She said after she blacked out, she dreamed that she was being fixed by some 'priest', whom was holding a nanobot of some sort at the time…"

"Did you say nanobot?"

"Yeah."

I paused, watching him think while he paced back and forth for about a couple minutes. He seemed to be plotting out a way to find out if something was indeed wrong with her.

"So, I'm guessing you have a plan."

"I do indeed. I need you to follow her around, see if there is anything else 'off' about her. If and when she starts acting strange, call me using this two way radio. Do not take any course of action until I have rectified the situation, UNLESS, the circumstances require any immediate attention. Got it."

"Sure." He handed me a rather large, almost beaten up looking hand radio. I paused for a moment, examining the rather pathetic looking machinery. "Is this thing still functional?"

"It is," he replied profoundly, "Now there is just two more thing I need to say before you do this. Number one, do not let her know why you are following her, incase there is something wrong with her that ever has to do with nanobots. We don't want them to be aware that we know they're there, IF they're there…"

"Oh, goodie. More lies…" I said sarcastically. "Wait a minute. Nanobots? _THEM_? You think there may be more?"

"No idea, but it would be safer to assume there are…"

"I understand."

"And, number two, if you must put her out of commission if the situation calls for it, try to keep her in one piece. Please? I don't want to see her ripped apart like she was some sort of slab of meat to a predator."

"I'll try."

"Good luck!"

I left the garage and headed 'home'. Tonight, I would fill Bizke in on the situations at hand. Tomorrow. I would start my little side mission.

I'm beginning to hate this job…


	14. Beasts of Burden

Wednesday, 3:15. I've been keeping a close eye on the target thoughout the day, as often as possible. I almost never let her out of my sight. The times I did were the times I had to. There are just some places even demons are not allowed to go into.

Through the day, nothing too unusual happened. The Crust cousins were up to no good again and planted something foul in the target's locker, and I quickly dealt with the matter without letting anyone else be aware of my presence, via pulling the fire alarm, and obliterating the source of that horrendous stench. There was that incident where her system "hiccuped" and every human electronic device near her went haywire, but she said it's probably just a glitch that needs some simple repairs, but I didn't take too much notice to that. However, there was that one thing that bothered me. From time to time, once every 3 hours, her eyes would turn red and she would say something that would mimic the tone of some heartless abomination. I reported it to Sheldon immediately, but all he said was that I should investigate further. I followed his advice, but decided to keep my distance for the time being until I could verify whether or not she would turn on me at the drop of a pin.

--

Wednesday, 5:23. She was touring around the small business district within the town. Other than the occasional odd heartless voice and red eyes thing that would just pop out at random moments, nothing seemed to be very different about XJ-9. Those odd gestures would need to be under heavier surveillance, however, as they seem to hint something rather foreboding, but I would not jump to any conclusions until I could rectify the situation.

I continued to follow her around as much as I could and wrote down all the instances where she bugged out like that, trying to see if they had any pattern. There was no such luck on that, but I had the strangest feeling that her internal system was fighting whatever was twisting her wiring without letting her know of the danger within. It was a wild thought that seemed rather absurd, and yet, made complete sense… especially when every other logical explanation seemed to be thrown out the window.

With a sigh, I radioed Sheldon, letting him knew what was up and informed him that, "I'm going in…"

"Going in? In what?"

"Her range of sight and sound. I'm going to try to get a closer observation of the situation."

"What if she finds out what your doing?" said the geeky voice over a fuzzy frequency.

"She won't. I'll make sure of that…"

"You better. If I'm right, then whatever is in here internal systems may either make her go berserk, or worse…"

"How would anything be worse than a fully armed and extremely dangerous robot going nuts, destroying everyone and anything in the way, and basically bring about the ruin of your kind?"

"Maybe if she…" he gulped, "self-destructed." he whimpered finally.

I sighed. "I promise I won't let her catch on."

"Th-thanks…"

I walked out of the shadows and right up to her.

"Hey Jen!" I said with a smile, "How are things going for you?"

"Damion, hi! Uh, well, I was just looking though the local fashion shops her in town trying to find something for the spring BAHRAM dance this year."

"Bahram dance?"

"_Spring_ BAHRAM dance. It's a dance that only comes around every 25 years, apparently, in honor of this discovery made by this guy during his prom. What he saw was a deep violet comet… It was like nothing they have ever seen, and it seems to come by the next season 25 years later. Last time it came this way was…"

She paused. I stood there, rather puzzled. Bahram? What the hell does that mean? Is it an acronym? Never heard of that word in any of my studies on the many human languages.

She continued, "Was around 2047, on a clear December night. This time, they say, it will be on the 29th of this year, which is 2072."

"Cool?"

"I know, isn't it?! I've never really heard of this until about a week and a half ago. Mom told me about it, like how it was the greatest night of her life, how she hopes to see it once again and study it a little more, and how she says I am lucky to have been built and activated at around this time."

"That's…"

"They all say it will be ten times better than any prom night, just because of comet showing up! So I need to look my absolute best."

"What is Bahram anyway?"

"Oh, it's just some silly acronym. Nobody really remembers what is stood for, but it had to do with the team of scientists who were formed by that guy nearly 75 years back…"

I chuckled, "Knew it…"

We walked up and down the streets, conversing with each other as if we were normal teenagers, but I knew that was a lie. She went on about how she hopes to get a date before then, on what she was going to wear, and on what she hopes to do during the dance. I listened attentively, hoping to catch any sign of a glitch in her system. Oddly, enough, none of the glitches seemed to surface around me.

--

The day continued on and made way for dusk like normal. We reached her house without really realizing it. I guess I accidentally walked her home…

"This is my stop," she said with a smile. Then in a more sarcastic, mocking, yet fun making tone, "Thanks for walking me home. Who knows what would have happened to this poor, defenseless superhero if you hadn't been there."

"Yuk, yuk, yuk…" I said flatly. I paused, and then I actually chuckled. She did too.

"Oh, before I head inside," she reached with her right hand to the left side of her back, pulled out a CD case, and motioned it to me, "I think this belongs to you. You said I could have it until Wednesday…"

For some reason, I pushed it back to her and said, "No, you keep it. Consider it as a little gift to you for being so nice to me, and not treating me like some hotshot."

"Really?"

"Yeah…."

Just then, he pigtails began to freak out. I was about to call Sheldon and let him know when she said, "Oh no! Not now!"

"What? This happened before?"

"Almost every week! It's my remote alarm."

One of the tails became what humans call a "satellite dish". Within a minute it transformed back and before I could ask what was going on, she took off, but shouted back at me "I'll see you tomorrow!" just before she got out of range from sight and sound.

"Damn." I cursed. The radio sounded off and I immediately answered it.

"What is it Sheldon?"

"You have to help her! I just saw what she's about to face and with what might be wrong with her, she could be in terrible danger!" He said, rather worried.

"Alright, I'll get to-" I paused, "Wait a minute. How'd you know there was trouble in town."

"Ahh, uhm… Well, I, uh, had this gut feeling! Yeah, that's right!!"

"Don't lie, Sheldon."

"Well, I had, uh, hacked into her remote alarm system a while back so I could know where she would be…"

"Sounds like you were stalking her…"

"… _and_ would be able to help her… i-if she needed it."

"Which probably was never…"

"Until now! Look. We can discuss this later. Right now, you have a sick robot to save. If she overheats, who knows what that nano inside her would do!"

"Fine. I'll let you know the ending…"

I then dropped the radio, which shattered upon impact when it hit the cement, made sure nobody was nearby watching, then I turned off my camo, and took flight after the target.

--

In the business district of Tremorton, a 9 foot tall minotaur with a rather vicious looking hammer was smashing up property and the various vehicles parked along the street. It roared in fury as it rampaged down the street. I got there moments after Jenny did. I was about to go and handle things, but I took a moment to watch her fight.

As the beast raised it's hammer to try and smash up an all glassware shop, Jenny stepped in front and caught the strike. She then ripped the hammer away from the monster. The beast grunted in shock, or anger, I wasn't really sure.

"Didn't your mom tell you that you should never play with hammers near glass?" And with that she gave the creature a mighty whack with the blunt weapon, sending it flying back up the street, where it landed with a loud thud. It didn't even take a second for the beast to get back up on it's feet. It roared again, and began approaching the steel heroin. She dropped the hammer and zoomed towards it, ready to beat it halfway to Sunday.

"Time to put you back in your pen!"

She swung a right hook at it's face, but the beast caught her attack.

"What the-" was all she had time for to say before it grabbed her other arm, and then gave a brutal headbutt to her own forehead. The thing chuckled as it dropped her and went past to go and reclaim it's blunt instrument.

"Oooh. Why you big bull-y!"

Quite a few idioms an puns for one person to say in one sitting, I thought.

She got up and charged back towards it. I could almost see this coming. The minotaur swung the hammer like a golf club and caused XJ-9 to sail in an arch at such a distance that would put every top pro golfer to shame.

"I've had enough," I said distastefully, as I stepped into the battle area and engage the beast. The thing took immediate attention to me, and took me as a threat, though it seemed like it saw me to be as easy as it's last opponent. The beast would sadly regret this mistake.

It charged right towards me at full force, with both horns aimed to pierce my body, and head to crush my ribcage. I waited for it to get critically close and then I took action. I flipped over the creature, grabbing both horns, and then, as I landed, I flipped it over my head, and slammed it against the ground. It got back up, slow enough for me to exploit, and I gave it a quick couple jabs to the face, and a nice hook to the jejunum (which almost caused it to vomit), and then toppled it over with a reverse direction grab and trip, causing it to fall flat on it's face. It moaned and whined in pain.

I then let it lie there for a moment as I grabbed it's former weapon from it's limp hand and got ready to play one swing of golf. I tapped it's rump with the hammer's face before I raised it over my head, preparing for a swing, yelling, "FORE!"

But, before I could bring that poor excuse for a golf club down on the minotaur like the wrath of Zeus in Greek myth, a beam of blue energy severed the head of the hammer from the handle. I looked at the burn marks left behind and then looked in the horizon. It was XJ-9, back from the land of the unconscious for round two with the beast under my feet.

"Ah, XJ-9, what a surprise." I dropped the now useless hammer handle, "I'll deal with this, little lady. Why don't you go home and study or something…"

She charged up another laser beam and fired. I teleported out of the way, up to the roof of the butcher's shop right beside the yielding mythical beast, which was just in the nick of time, as I found a small cut on my cheek (which means the attack could have taken my entire head off).

"Hey! That could have been my head!" I said jokingly with a hint of anger in my voice.

"Which would be less for me to look at, you cretin!" she shouted with full on rage.

"Oh, that hurts Jenny… Here, I'm trying to be nice, and you give your thanks by attacking and taunting me? Well, I guess maybe I shouldn't have gone so soft on you, so you wouldn't be so arrogant now!"

I teleported to directly in front of her and swung a knock-out punch at her face too fast for her internal radar systems to pick up. I stopped a micrometer away from hitting her delicate 'nose'.

"I'm not her to fight you Jenny. Not this time, anyway. I'm just here to visit…" I said placidly. I lowered my fist and walked back over to the defeated minotaur whom was still trying to get back up.

"And it looks like my time is up for today. I'll take out the trash, miss XJ-9. You have a good day, and I'll see you later. I can assure you of that." I grabbed the beast by both of his hinged legs with one hand and took flight. As I ascended, I could see Jenny stare up at me for a moment or two, before toppling over out of, shock, exhaustion, or something that I could never really fathom.


	15. Under Valor

Saturday, 11:58 AM. I was wandering around the city, trying to get a feel for my stomping ground. I had a feeling that sometime in the distant future, the environment around me would play a huge role in my combat strategy, although when in the distant future was still a big fat question mark to me. In any case, it gave me time to sort out my objectives as well as keep my thoughts in order. There was also another reason why I was wandering around. Sheldon was still worried about Jenny. Even though we never encountered anything too dire around her, he believed that whatever's in her system might activate soon and I needed to be present for that even so that I could properly rectify and solve the situation. If not, it will at least give him enough relief for him to try to find a way to scan, pinpoint, and terminate the infection inside her without the use of force. Whatever the case may be, I'd still win.

As I neared the town square, Brad called out my name as he ran towards me.

"What is it?" I asked promptly.

"It's big news! The mayor of Tremorton is going to award Jenny for her years of heroism to the city. He's going to give her a metal of Courage and a golden key to the city! Then, they're going to throw a big parade in her honor!"

"When is this happening?"

"In a few minutes. The ceremony will start at 12:10. I'm getting a front row seat before the rest of the town arrives."

"I'll come with you. I've never really been to one of these."

"No one has. Not that often, anyway."

As we headed for town square, one terrible thought crossed my mind in regards to the glitch in the targets system. This couldn't end well.

--

As predicted, the whole town gathered in front of a podium set up just before the town hall. Next to the podium were some men in black suites, black ties and , dark shades. Next to them was the mayor of the town and his secretary, who then handed the mayor his speech to the populous. He stepped up to the podium. I could here him whisper to his secretary, "Where's Jennifer Wakemen? Isn't she supposed to be here by now?"

"There's three minutes remaining. She'll be here. Why don't you start your speech while we wait for her arrival," she whispered back to him.

"Good thinking."

The mayor stepped up to the podium and addressed his public.

"My fellow citizens. It is an honor for me to bring you out here on this fine spring morning to give thanks to a young lady who has done so much for this city. I'm sure if she were never around, we'd all would be stuck on cluster prime by now, toiling away for our robotic overlords until the day we die. But, because she is around, we'll never have to face that fate. TAKE THAT VEXUS!!…"

There was an 'ah-hem' coming from the secretary, and then she whispered "stick to the speech…"

"Yes, well, all humor aside, it is my privilege to recognize these acts of utter bravery from this particular young lady, and to present our deepest gratitude with these small tokens of our appreciation. To Miss Jennifer Wakemen…"

Whom then floated from the sky above the crowd all the way down beside the mayor. Her jet like engines hummed softly as she landed, then shut off completely.

"Yes, mayor?" she said sweetly.

"Brilliant entrance, I have to say. The best one I've seen in… EVER!" He exclaimed.

"Why thank you."

Another 'Ah-hem' came from the secretary.

"Right, Uh, To Miss Jennifer Wakemen. For her outstanding Valor in the face of danger to protect us all from harm, I award you the Platinum Cross of Courage."

He opened a box which contained a metal, which was then picked out and hung around the target's neck.

"Thank you," she said bashfully.

"And, for you, Miss Wakemen, for your indescribable heroics that has saved us for far more than just a few times, and as a token of our infinite appreciation, we present you the ceremonial key to the city, which we humbly offer, and hope you accept."

"I do," she said sincerely.

As the mayor handed the large ceremonial key to Jenny, everybody cheered with utter joy and praise, except for the Crust cousins, whom were right behind me, booing and hissing as much as they could to try to overlap the voices of the zealous crowd, which was in vein.

Jenny stepped down from the podium and walked up to the crowd. She then addressed the populous herself.

"Thank you all for what you've done. This has been the greatest day in my life, just for knowing you all care, and for knowing that you all appreciate what I do for you. Thank you Tremorton!"

The crowd cheered louder, and began to chant her name. The crowd could barely contain their excitement. Then something strange happened. Jenny dropped her key and dubbed over in pain, clutching her head. The crowd's cheers died down to murmurs. Then she heaved back and screamed up to the heavens. Everybody fell silent as XJ-9 wailed in pain that came from an unknown origin. I could feel the shivers run down everyone's spine.

Damn, I thought, It's begun.

She began to writhe whilst approaching the crowd, whom separated to keep their distance, far enough to be safe form the freaked out hero, but close enough to witness what was going on. She seemed like she was painfully trying to fight off something within her system. The target stopped in the middle of the street, and then snapped he head back, with her chest extended forward and her back arched, as if whatever she was struggling against had won. Jenny upper body then slumped back down, tired an weary after the struggle, but that only lasted for a moment.

Brad, the only one brave enough to approach, asked her, "Jenny, are you alright?"

Jenny's head turned to Brad, with eyes as crimson as fresh blood. She straightened back up, and stared at him for a moment.

"Jenny…?" he said, horrified and worried all at once.

The target turned the rest of her body towards him. "Bradley Carbuncle," it said in he most emotionless tone in her voice, "Age 16. New target. High priority termination. Engage."

"T-termination?" he stuttered in horror. "Jenny, it's me. Your best friend!"

"Eliminate Bradley Carbuncle. Code omega." The blue clad android then transformed one of her arms into an insidious looking weapon, and aimed it at the human's head.

Time to step in, I thought.

"HEY! Pick on someone your own size!" I yelled at her from the back of the crowd near a row of motorcycles.

She turned to me and instantly said, "Damion Amoeboid. Age Unknown. High threat level. Immediate Termination."

"Gotchya…"

She fired a laser at my head, but I promptly ducked. Before she could charge another round I took one of the motorbikes (the one with the keys still in it). As I was about to speed away the owner, a rather gruff looking human wearing jeans, a leather jacket, and a bandana shouted, "MY BIKE!"

Just before I sped off, I yelled back to him, "SorryI'llbringitback, THANK YOU!!"

As I rode down the street at high speeds, I looked back to see if she was following me. And, sure enough, she was. I had to get out of Tremorton and get her as far away from the public as possible. In this state, she could hurt an innocent.

I hung a left and headed for Tremorton Park, avoiding the few trees, a picnic stand, and gazebo while going though, and headed for the forest adjoining the park. Using my unique piloting skills, I weaved though the coniferous forest like a needle to clothing. She, however, just plowed though the trees with her various saw blades and melee weaponry.

I turned off my guise and took out the Cerberus Claw from out of the hammerspace cube that was strapped to my side. She fired a saw blade at me, but I promptly 'cut' it short with a quick and precise swing of my own weapon. The deranged XJ-9 switched her weapons from the tree cutting variety to the biological eliminator types, and began firing rounds of blue hot plasma that could sear though steel. I evaded though the globs of liquid death and the certain death of the trees if I were to hit their trunks.

The firing stopped, and I looked back. She was gone.

"That's not good…"

Just then, she pulled up beside me, and transformed her right arm into another saw, and thrusted it at my head. I panicked and leaned backward. The spinning serrated blade just went passed my neck and barely nicked it. Another centimeter more and I'd be in deep trouble.

She swung another at me, and another, and another. I ducked, weaved, and parried the vicious attacks, all while trying to keep myself from crashing at top speed. She flew out of view into the canopy.

"What now?"

Incoming my way was a tree top about twelve feet long, three feet thick, and heavy enough to break all of my demonic bones. I dodged in the nick of time, but that wasn't the only airborne assault she had in store. Another couple of tree trunks were flung at me from above. I changed my weaving pattern, in worry that she would anticipate my next move. But no, each trunk that was spear-headed towards me was aimed to kill me directly.

One of the trunks was flung around twenty feet in front of my path. It stuck into the ground, and began to lean forward, making a sort of ramp.

"Oh SHI-" was all I could say as I rode off of the decapitated tree into the sky high above the roof of the forest. As I flew up to my projectile limit and began to descend, Jenny sped towards me, attempting to take advantage of the situation of my airborne vulnerability. In desperation, I leaned forward, hard, in order to cause the motorcycle to flip. When it did, I heard a mighty smack. While I was upside down for a moment, I saw the deranged android being flung backward. I kept flipping all the way down back into the woodland until I was able to land right-side up back on the forest floor. The bike bounced a little, which didn't sound too good, but it kept going in any case.

I looked back and saw Jenny speeding back towards me again.

"Not, again!"

She transformed her arm into a multi-mini-missile launcher and fired. I readied my blade and began slicing them up, by the threes, while I was still going 167mph. I was able to kill them off, but something else was headed my way. A heat seeker missile.

Now, like that zealot said over a week ago, I don't expose any heat. However, this bike that I was on is a completely different story. As I weaved, so did the missile. If I didn't find a way to shake this thing off…

Then I had an idea, I quickly sliced on of the trees that I passed. It toppled over, and I thought that would be the end of it, but when I looked back, that missile just simply 'jumped' over the obstacle I threw in it's way.

"What the hell?"

As I continued to attempt to loose this smart heat seeker, XJ-9 began firing more standard missiles at me. These ones were much faster, but had little homing capabilities, which was a plus for me. I dodged each one that got too close and cut the ones I couldn't escape. One of the ones I tried to destroy zoomed past me and blew up a tree that began to topple over. It smacked the front of the motorcycle and caused it and me to spin forwards out of control right to a large clearing and into a mountain crag.

I hit the rock with enough force that could kill a normal human and fell down from the mountain side far enough to break every bone in a normal human's body. Lucky I wasn't human.

As I got up, I watched the missile, the one Jenny sent to hunt me down with no mercy, destroy the motorcycle. I covered my eyes form the light and heat of the explosion.

"Well, I guess I won't be bringing that back…"

Jenny hovered at the edge of the clearing and landed softly on the grass. She aimed a new weapon of me.

"Target Damion Amoeboid missing. Higher threat target acquired. Terminate unknown target." She said heartlessly as her new weapon charged a shot of blue energy and fired it at me. I dodge-rolled out of the way to the right and stood back up straight. She looked up above my head. I looked up too just to see what caught her interest. It was the Cerberus Claw, firmly wedged into the mountain side. I had another idea.

She swapped her gun for her own blade and thrusted forward, via 'stinger' style. I jumped just before she was about to strike me, grabbed a hold of the handle of my blade, and swung my legs forward hard enough to smack her in the face and cause her to fly backwards. I swung back, planted my feet firmly against the wall of the mountain, and pulled. The blade wedged free and I landed gently on the grass, blade poised for combat.

Jenny got back up, and transformed her other arm into battle axe. She approached me with caution. So did I. Neither of us knew what the other would do, and it would most likely be the toughest and greatest fight for our lives. The fate of mankind was pitted at this very moment. If she won now, in her state of mind, all of mankind could be lost. I could not let that happen.


	16. Rain Over Me

The afternoon mist began to roll into the clearing. We stood, mere paces away from each other, weapons poised to shed the life from each other. It was either her, or them, and I could not allow the latter, not while my black heart still beats within me. Even though I despised the thought of destroying her, I would not hesitate if it had to be.

"Jenny, Listen to me. You have to fight it. You have to fight whatever is inside you. I know you're still in there. I know you wouldn't kill."

She said nothing. Instead, she swung her heavy battle axe right across my face in response. I jumped back to avoid collision. In retaliation, I thrusted forward with the butt end of the Cerberus Claw and struck her in the chest, knocking her back a couple feet, far enough to give me enough room to formulate an effective plan to put a stop to her madness. Plans were cut short, however, when Jenny quickly recovered and shot her blade at me from out of her arm. I stepped out of the way in the nick of time. I failed to notice the chain the blade was attached to, so as I charged towards her, she pulled back, hard, and the blade came back screaming towards her, catching me in the recoil, and causing my being to spin 900o, causing me to throw my blade of to the side, leaving me stunned and horrendously vulnerable. She took the opportunity to run me over and attempted to finish me off with her axe. The deranged hero brought it down to the vertical of my head, and I rolled out of the way, just barely fast enough to snap out of my dizziness, and just in time to avoid a bloody end.

I got back up and faced her once more. She charged at me again and swung her axe. I blocked the strike, and the follow up shot she had let loose on me. I retaliated, but wasn't quick enough to see her block my attack and swiftly counter attack with a punch to the face. I arched backward and landed on the hard ground with a thud. What made the landing worse was a rock the size of my fist, which had been inconveniently half buried beneath the ground, that was pressing firmly against my spine, making my situation much more painful. And it was about to get much, much worse.

Jenny approached my side, while transforming her arms into an extra-large spiked mace, and raised it above her head. She brought it down on me, striking me once. I shouted in agony. She brought it down on me again. I let out another cry of pain. I could barely move. She was going to end me, but I had to something, for the sake of mankind.

She brought down the mace upon my being once more, and I quickly reacted, catching it with both hands, and pushed as hard as I could to give me enough room to evade my death. Using my spider like appendages, I lifted myself off the ground as much as I could to get my spine off that god awful rock. Once I was at maximum height, I rolled directly underneath her. The mace hit the ground with bone crushing force and Jenny hesitated for a moment, due to the after shock of the miss-strike. I took the time of hesitation to knock her off her feet, via tripping her, while I still lay on my back.

While she was still in the air, I preformed a reverse suplex, by grabbing her with my legs (causing me to stand upside down) and swung back in an arch, forcing her head to contact the ground with enough strength to stun a Juggernaut. During that split second, I launched myself off of her. I landed at the base of my blade, and in one swift movement, I picked it up and turned back towards her. She was gone.

There was a heavy crack in the back of my head as I realized too late that Jenny had taken my lack of attentiveness to her advantage. This fight was getting rather critical, I thought while flying forward, even though only a couple minutes have passed. I had made up my mind in that nanosecond (even with what could be a concussion). I would have to shut her down for good. There was no other option. I held back long enough.

I flipped forward, landing back onto my feet, and spun around face to her. She charged at me once more with her mace in hand. She launched it at me, but I quickly dodged to the side. As she was about to pull back, to use the recoil to stun me once again, I grabbed a hold of the chain, and pulled hard towards me. She flew forward, confused about the sudden turn of events. I grappled her, and twisted her left arm to a critical point and pulling it closer to the center of her back. With one horrible movement, as she struggled, I broke the arm, and tore it away from her circuitry. Now that she was free, with her still completely whole arm (aside from the mace that lay just beyond reach of usage), she elbowed me in the face and jumped away from me, pulling the spiked ball of doom behind her. I ducked before I could make any contact.

The moment it reached her, she de-transformed it and brought out a more suitable weapon. I charged towards her, in hopes to thwart her. She swung, what looked like an oversized spiked fist at me, and would have made me a shooting star, but lucky for me, I anticipated something similar to that and I blocked with my Cerberus Claw. The backlash force caused her to step backward, and allowed me to advance towards her. She quickly re-transformed her arm into a gattling turret, and began to fire a multitude of lasers at me. I took a sharp right turn and circled her, trying to find a weak point, all while avoiding the bullet fast streams of red hot energy. I faked backward and then stepped into the line of fire. The fake caused the lasers to harmlessly blaze over my head, as I charged right towards XJ-9.

She de-transformed her arm and put her fist up in an offensive defense. I brought my blade down on her, hoping to make the final killing stroke, but to my surprise, and utter disbelief, she caught it. With a force of will, she tossed it aside and egged me on to take her on. I punched, kicked, hammered-fisted, and back round housed, her, but she blocked each shot. I let loose a right hook the moment I faced her once more, but she caught that too. I pushed forward, and so did she. This was getting nowhere, so I grabbed her arm that was clutching my fist and tore it away from it. All of a sudden, just as I did this, she ducked down and rammed her head into my stomach, which completely caught me off guard, and caused me to release her arm and step back. She rushed me and began throwing her own barrage of punches and kicks. I was able to block the shots, but I had to put some painful effort into it as my whole body was hurting at this point.

I could barely see this coming, but in a split second, she changed her right leg into something sharp and serrated, and preformed a quick and precise roundhouse kick to my face. I stepped back, but just too late as the blades struck my skin and mask. Three cuts stretched along the left side of my head, one above my eyebrow, one just on my cheek, and another just on my bottom jaw. I stepped back, reacting to the strike, placing my battered hand over the wound, wiping the blue blood from my face. I looked at my bloody open palm, and then at her. I could see a grizzly satisfaction in her psychotic eyes.

Something went wild within me as I charged forward to repay her for what she had just done to me. She met my fury with another kick, but I grabbed it in retaliation and swung her to the ground. I then bent the leg back and tore half of it free from her. I then grabbed the other one, and began slamming her into the ground over and over again, before throwing her into the mountain side.

She hit the wall of rock with a deafening crack and fell back to the ground. I walked over to the Cerberus claw, which she had discarded from the fight prior to my little freak-out, and picked it back up. My rage subsided and all that was left was my duty. I walked back over to her mangled body that lay face down in the dirt. Her right leg and left arm were now useless. There were cracks all around the foundation of her being, one in particular being in the back of her head. For some reason, my heart skipped a beat.

"I'm sorry, Jenny. I didn't want it to be this way, but you had left me no other choice." I said whole heartedly.

Just then, she shot her other fist ant me, with a dead aim shot, and smacked me firmly in the face. It was enough force to drive me all the way to the other side of the clearing. I didn't know what happened next, but hen I came back to my senses, I saw her upright, standing on her one leg and her a stretched out arm to act as her other leg. She hobbled slowly towards me, determined to follow her unknown orders. I knew what I had to do now, but I knew how risky it was.

My original plan was to reason with her and find a way to lightly subdue her. Because that didn't work at all, I had to actually try to pummel her into submission, in hopes that I weaken her enough so that I could turn her off temporarily and take her back to Tremorton so that I can get her repaired. However, because of the way she continued to preside in, and through her own hardwired persistence, it looked like I might end up destroying her, which would have been bad, even though I was willing to do the deed and accept the consequences. I had a new idea, but it would risk more than just the mission. In order to knock her out now, I would have to send out an electromagnetic pulse, which just might kill us both

My new plan was risky on two instances. First and foremost, I had a fifty percent chance survival rate, as generating a pulse strong enough to knock out a super powerful robot would take nearly all of my energy, and very few demons ever survive with nearly all of their energy depleted. Secondly, I had no way of knowing how this would affect her. I would hope it would just shut down her systems, but I was afraid it might terminate something else within her. The odds were against it, but it was my last hope, as it should always be.

As she got closer, I concentrated, all the way down to my center, and formulated all of my energy into ball in my hands. With a force of will, the ball detonated and sent out an electronic shockwave, that, upon impact, caused Jenny to collapse. I lied there for a moment or two, so very tired. I ached all over. The pain settled in where my energy once was. I feared I might have made a terrible mistake, as I passed out to meet the black void.

--

I woke up an hour later, quite exhausted and still feeling as battered as I was before. I rose to my feet, staggering a bit, and looked around the clearing. Jenny lied mere inches away from me. I had no idea on how close I cut it until I saw that blue and white body. I looked around wearily and noted the arm, the leg, the blade, and the charred wreckage. From out of my hammerspace cube, I pulled out my alternate guise's backpack and slung it over my shoulders. I walked over to each limb, one at a time, picked them up, and put them into the backpack. I walked over to the sword and slipped it into the hammerspace cube. I then walked over to Jenny, whom lay unconscious on the ground before me, and knelt down to her. I leaned in closer and I could still hear the hum of something within her still functioning. I had no way of knowing what it was, but with the evidence that was presented before me, I had a feeling my fears were nothing to worry about.

The mission was now back into motion. I had stopped her from doing harm to anyone else, I had effectively disarmed her and I had done it all without destroying her. Everything was now returning to normal, or at least as normal as it was going to get the moment I return home. I had saved them all, and her in the process, even though I had to shut her down, but for some reason, I felt a tug at my heartstrings…

I looked up, and saw the sky get dark grey. A light thunder could be heard above me. A breeze blew in from the forest wall, wailing softly though the many trees. Then, I could feel small droplet of water touch my healed over cuts that once stretched across my face. I turned on my camo, picked up the battered hero, and stood back on my feet. I cradled her in my arms gently, so I would not do anything more to damage the future hero of all mankind, and began to walk back to Tremorton in the lightly falling rain. A drop of water rolled down from my eye to my cheek, but I figured, "it's just the rain…"


	17. A True Legend

And the storm that soon broke out down-poured upon my exhausted body whilst I made my way down to the residential area of the city with her body gently laying in my arms. A chilly breeze set in, but I was already numb. It was getting harder and harder for me to keep going with each passing step. The fight had taken more of a toll on me than I had realized.

I just have to make it to Sheldon… I thought wearily. I've walked farther than twenty miles before, so I can't give up now.

The distance from where I fought Jenny to where my final destination lay was much farther than what I thought about, and I knew it, but I denied the truth to keep myself from giving up. I had to make it there. For the mission. For mankind. For her…

I could see his house in the distance. The rain refused to let up. I felt my hand begin to slip, and I would have dropped her, but I held her closer and kept going. I agonized every second in the harsh rain as the wind and cold began to pick up. The sky crackled with fury and sorrow. It felt like the universe was against me.

I stepped up to the small door to Sheldon's garage. I tried to call for him, but I was too weak to speak, so I rammed my head into the steel door. It wasn't the smartest thing, as it gave me a massive headache to top off the pain from the rest of my body, but I was ready drop, and I needed in. Besides, the sudden rush of the new injury strangely kept me awake.

Sheldon opened the door, and the horror in his eyes was unexplainable.

"Get in! Get in! Don't let her rust!!" He shouted at me. I glared at him, with tired and injured eyes, before I walked inside and placed her carefully on a man-sized table. Once I did, I finally collapsed to the floor, and sat down for the moment.

"What did you do to her?!" he asked protectively.

"Nothing you can't fix," I said softly, "I didn't have much of a choice. When she lets nothing stand in her way, she is much harder to stop."

I grabbed my side, right were a rib seemed to be broken, and I snapped it back into place. I cringed for a moment, but held my tongue. The pain subsided, and I sighed in relief.

I looked at him and said, "You should be grateful she likes your kind, or you all would have been done for a long time ago…"

I watched him look at her for a moment, as he tried to get a full diagnostics of her unconscious state. He looked at me and said, "Where is her left arm and right leg?"

"Here," I said as I removed the back pack from my shoulders and slid it under the table to his feet. He picked up the pack, gently took out the limbs I tore free from her and laid them on the table to their respected spots of connectivity. He studied her for another moment, looking over all of the physical damages he could note.

"Nearly sixty-seven percent of her armor is either cracked or dented in," he analyzed, "Two limbs have been torn free, and there seems to be no sign of further structural damage, none that should knock her out, anyway. How'd you shut her down?"

"A self generated EMP. It was risky, but I had to do it…."

"AN ELECTROMEGNETIC PULSE?! You could have killed her!!" Leaned closer to her as if her were listening for a sign of life within her. "Her internal functions seem to still be processing, and I can still hear the hum of her vitals systems…"

He backed away, and glared at me. "An EMP, what the heck was going though your head?! You're lucky it didn't damage the systems that make her Jenny to the point of being unfixable." He paused for a moment, and then said with confusion, "Wait a minute… how did you generate an EMP? I didn't give you anything powerful enough to do it, and that cube-ish device on your side doesn't look like it could do something like that."

"SELF generated, Sheldon," I repeated, "I set one off though myself."

"But how…" he muttered, "That's impossible!"

"Some of my kind have rather unique abilities. One, being the most common, is to send a wave of energy to render electrical devices useless. The downside is…"

I said as I tried to get up, but just collapsed back against the wall. "… we tend to use a ton of our energy to generate a strong enough force to take down a small device such as computer, leaving us not only vulnerable, but critically close to death."

"Holy cow…" he said in wonder, which was probably sarcastic, as he then said, "I'm finding it hard to believe what your saying."

"Oh, and an extra dimensional demon, taking the guise of a sixteen year old boy, helping you save a mechanical girl from death is believable?" I stated spitefully. He sighed.

"You've got a point."

"You're just going to have to take my word for it." I said as I rose slowly to my feet long enough to walk over to the raggedy old couch and sit on it. "Much better," I sighed.

"You gonna be alright?"

"Demons generally have a much faster metabolism rate than humans or any other species in the universe. Most of us heal rather quickly. Fortunately, I'm one of them."

"That wasn't what I asked…"

"Read between the lines, Sheldon. I'm alright. I just need a minute or two to get my strength up."

"Good, then you can help me extract the bug in Jenny's system, just as soon as I locate the little sucker…" He said as her pulled out a machine with several cables attached to it. He then attached the cables to all of her ports (one on her head, one on each of her shoulders, one in her back, one on her belly bolt, and one on each hip) and turned on the device, it hummed and began it's scan. "This might take a while…" he remarked.

"Fine by me, as long as it happens." I felt a small sting in my right arm and fond it was broken. I didn't notice due to the numbness I felt while outside and because my forearm gauntlet was keeping it stiff. I turned off my camo and removed the gauntlet. With a quick twist, something in my arm made a snapping noise, and the break repaired. I put the gauntlet back on and turned the camo back on.

"That must have hurt…" he said, cringing.

"That's the trade off. Increased pain for a speed up in my efforts to heal myself. Most don't bother with that sort of thing, but it really does bite when you have a broken arm and you're facing a deranged creature that intends on ripping your arms off. It's either broken arm and certain death, or increased pain and chance of victory."

"Hey, uh, why did you turn your camo back on after you… 'fixed' your arm."

"Force of habit."

Silence.

"Just go with it…" I said.

He walked over to the other end of the couch and sat down, twiddling his thumbs.

"So…" he said with intrigue and hesitation, "What's it like, uh, being a extra dimensional species, such as yourself."

"Hell," I said frankly. I turned to him and chuckled, "Get it? Cause demons are from…"

Then, an awkward silence pulled over.

"Nevermind. Stupid joke…"

"You got that right."

"You know, in all seriousness, we don't live very different lives than you humans do. The only thing that sets us apart form you is our physical appearance and our abilities. We have a wide range of powers and techniques that are far beyond any planet in the universe's understanding. We are nearly the same caliber of beings as our ancestors, the angels…"

"Angels EXIST?!" he exclaimed.

"You never knew that?"

"I heard, but I didn't believe it."

"Typical," I said flatly.

"So, the whole religious thing isn't bunk."

"Not totally, no. There are some things that were left out, never to be said, and there were some things said that were used instead, such as metaphors for good and evil, complex stories on the origins of the universe. I think it was for the best, as it showed a very controversial side to what was going just beyond the reach of man's understanding. Your kind was just not ready to accept something so big."

"What about the heaven and hell thing?"

"True, in a sense. There is a Heaven. It is an infinite kingdom where all the good souls from the universe go to live out their eternal lives with countless others in peace and paradise as angels. Or, at least, that is what we are told. It is the exact same story as it has been printed in your many books that interpret that paradise. Hell, however, is a different story. Hell is where the wicked, damned, and cursed go, as cleche as that sounds. Sometimes, they are just stuck there, in madness, to live out their eternal lives in sorrow, but, on occasion, souls get free and gain substance and form. It becomes a legionnaire of hell. Forever to serve it's current master until it dies."

"Current master? What does that mean?"

"It's complicated, and it would take me a long time to explain it. It's not very interesting anyway."

"Alright. Well, what is so different about the hell that's been told to us?"

"Hell has been divided into many sections. Most of them house the true demons, the evil spirits and damned angels, and are home to Lucifer, who is frozen under ice, and his top right hand men, the few that are left anyway. That part of hell is divided into nine sections, I recall, each with their own version of madness. It's not very pleasant.

Just above that, the section closer to your end of the mirror, resides our domain, the Nether Realm. It was a piece of hell that separated when we revolted."

"Revolted?"

"Yeah. It was an event that shook the very balance of good and evil. It all started with one of Lucifer's own creations. A 'Dark Knight' in ever respect of the word. He was as powerful as he was skilled. He was sent to earth to find the son of god and have him destroyed. He went, but, hen he got there, he saw something beyond his orders and his duty. He saw something much greater than his so-called master. And, in defiance, he lead away any who intended to do the child harm. Thirty years hence, and his master attempts to do away with his fear, and sadly, succeeds though the treachery of Judas and the greed of the High Priests that wanted him out of their lives, as you probably already know. The moment Jesus was crucified, his soul become cursed, and was never to ascend into heaven, but instead to be forced into hell.

He descends into hell, where all cursed, evil, or damned souls go and enters the gates. He is taken away, down into the eighth layer to be locked away. The 'Dark Knight' did not like what his master had done to this pure souled man, and planned to help him escape. For three human days, word circulated and Lucifer feared once more. He had his army block off the gate and guard Jesus. None of them were a match, they all fell before his blade as he lead this blessed soul out of each layer of hell. As they got closer to the gate, something within some of us clicked. We did not stop this Dark Knight, but joined him in his crusade. Thousands of us rose up to fight for this one man. Though many of us parished, we reached the gates and escaped hell, where the Knight then shut the gate and sealed it, terminating their main entrance to your world.

Above hell, just before it's gate, hundreds of us stood in a plain of non existence. What was there at the time was total void with the laws of physics in place. Think of it as a much more logical, much more dark purgatory."

"So what happened then? Not that I am interested in all of the religious stuff, but the whole good and evil thing fascinates me. It always has."

"Well, not a moment later, a group of seven archangels opened a portal from high up in this depressing void and came down to us. They declared they were here to take the one we just saved back up to earth for one final task. They told us all of his importance and told us that because of our recent actions, we were given a chance to prove ourselves worthy as one of them. He then told the Dark Knight that because he saved this man's life when he was a child, he was given privilege to lead an ageless, yet normal, life on earth any time he wanted to, but was warned that he would only get one hundred years to spend. And with that, the angels made a special gate to the earth for us, and transformed the void into an angelic looking version of hell. It was uninspiring to us, but they told us it was a symbol that we are halfway from atonement, and that our efforts will never be forgotten. Before they left, they told us that we may also visit the realm of the mortals, but we are not to spent more than one month up there, and that once one has spent it up there, that one could never return until a century has passed."

"So that's why you can only stay for a month."

"Not what you hoped, was it?"

"Not really, but go on."

"So, with all that said, they took the soul of Jesus, and placed him back on Earth for one last task, and left us all behind. The Dark Knight did not follow them, and when I asked why he didn't, he merely said to me, 'I will go at the twilight of Man's dominance. There is still much that I must do for them before I can take my paradise.' And for nearly two thousand years he did, up until your human year 1894. Then he ascended to Earth to take up on their offer and lived the life of an ageless mortal. Traveling the world, keeping out of the sight of the curious, until one day…"

"Until one day what? Someone found him out? Someone uncovered his origins and threatened to go public with them."

"No. He kept out of sight until one day, in America, he met a mortal woman, and did the impossible."

"What? What did he do?"

"He fell in love."

"Corny! That's probably the most cliché thing I've ever heard!" Sheldon said in an outburst.

"Not to us. Love is something that our kind was never truly capable of experiencing. It's the same with sorrow, true joy, and guilt."

"Wow, that must be harsh."

"Sometimes yes. They are not necessary for our duties, but we all wish to be mortal for one moment, just so we can experience every thing that you do. Perhaps the angels would grace us with that gift like they did with the Dark Knight. It's one of the reasons we do what we do, with protecting your kind with an unexplainable drive being at the top of those reasons."

"I see…" he said, pondering, "I'm still finding it very hard to believe."

"You don't have to believe me, but it's true enough to me."

Sheldon sat there, thinking for a moment, processing the entire story of my missions origin.

"Well," he said finally, "This certainly was an impressive story, but I still have one question."

"What is it?"

"What was the Dark Knight's name, or was it just 'Dark Knight'?"

"He had a name. Every day, when we say his name, we speak a legend true to us as the air is true to you. He was the legendary Dark Knight… Sparda."


	18. Devices of the Demons

"That's some story…" Sheldon said honestly. He got up and checked the device that was hooked to Jenny. He stared at it for a moment and then walked back to the couch and sat down. "The scanner hasn't found anything yet. Looks like it might take longer than I thought."

I looked at him with puzzlement, then I looked over to the unconscious Jenny.

"You really care for her, don't you?"

"WHAT, I mean yes, I do, I mean, I love her, I mean…" Sheldon fumbled with his words while his face began to turn red, before he finally exclaimed, "Where did that topic come from!?"

"No where, I just noticed it since I met you. I kind of find it strange that a human desires to hand over his heart to a mechanical being."

"No more as strange as your legendary black knight demon guy loving a human?"

I pondered for a moment. "Point taken…"

I got up and walked about the garage, looking at the various primitive gadgets he tried to complete. I picked one up.

"DON'T TOUCH THAT! That will set off the rocket in my back yard!"

I put it down. "Sorry." I continued looking around.

"So, what happened?"

"What happened with what?" I replied to the incomplete question.

"What happened that made Jenny freak out, and how did it lead up to you using an EMP to disable her?"

"Much better question, " I said as I was looking at scale model of Earth. "Well, I don't know exactly what made XJ-9 go nuts, but I do know when…" I spun the globe as I paused, for dramatic tension, "It was just after the town ceremony to honor Jenny. It was as if that whatever was in her was waiting for crowd of civilians to be nearby…"

"That makes sense…"

"After she flipped out, I lead her as far away from your city as I possibly could, and engaged her in combat… She proved to be more than I would have ever guessed."

"I shouldn't have been that hard, I mean, you can teleport (I've seen you do that), you have that weird gauntlet, and you match Jenny in strength."

"Teleportation takes a lot of concentration, even in a short timeframe. Jenny left me no time to think about skipping distances. And I left the Nightmare-Zeta back at…" I paused for a moment, and said, "an undisclosed location."

"That still doesn't mean you should have too much trouble with her."

"Her powers are much greater than mine, Sheldon, though, in order to reach her potential, she needed to be in the right situation, and going psycho on us was the perfect opportunity. I lucked out when the EMP was effective against her."

"Well that puts faith in your desire to save mankind," Sheldon said sarcastically.

"Believe me when I say this… There are more powerful demons than I. I'm a lieutenant, imagine a general."

Sheldon gulped at the thought. "That's pretty scary."

"More than you'll ever know. Be glad that our kind is on your side…"

The device that was hooked up to Jenny beeped. Sheldon ran up to it and read over the diagnostics. "I found it!' He exclaimed.

He rushed over to his tool box and brought out a specially designed screwdriver and rushed back.

"Help me turn her over," he said. I got up off the couch and flipped her over. "Uhhh, thanks…"

He started unscrewing the back of her head and he very carefully took out her brain. Near the front of it was this black, spider like device clamped onto her circuitry. He tapped the device and it fidgeted, but remained firmly held to the brain.

"This isn't good. I need a laser to destroy it's legs, and I fear none of mine are effective enough."

"You're lucky I do." I activated the watches other special function, "Bizke!"

"What is it?" said the little gremlin from across the city. Sheldon looked at me, puzzled (or thinking I was insane. I'm not sure).

"I need you to retrieve the Nightmare-Zeta for me. Priority black."

"I'm on it!"

"What was that? Did Jenny hit you too hard upside the head?" Sheldon said, snickering.

"Just calling a friend…" I said placidly, ignoring his snarky attitude, "Whom will be here in three… two… one…"

Just then, from out of nowhere, Bizke suddenly appeared beside Sheldon with the NZ at hand.

"Looking for this, boss?" he said. Sheldon screamed. Bizke turned to him and then bellowed to me, "OI! You're not supposed to let a human know of our existence! That's serious trouble! He might rat on us!"

"Sheldon's ok. We have a mutual understanding. He won't tell anybody."

"B-baba-ba-ba-bbb-bba-" Sheldon stammered.

"Yeah, you may be right. With the way he's acting, I'd guess he's to much of an idiot to reveal our presence." Bizke said insultingly. Sheldon immediately snapped out of his stupor to reply to the little gremlin's rude comment.

"AN IDIOT?! HOW DARE YOU, YOU LITTE MUNCHKIN! I'll have you know I am a genius in my own field and a superb inventor."

"Your own field? I guess that makes you the only moron in your parent's garage! HAAA HAHAHAHA!" he said viciously as he handed me the gantlet.

"Why, you… you…" And with what was uttered by Sheldon, Bizke disappeared.

"Don't mind him. Gremlins are known to be twits. They'll always get under your skin sooner or later."

He stared at me with discontent. "That's not very reassuring."

"It doesn't matter right now. I have what we need." I said as I put on the gauntlet.

Sheldon looked at it, and his mood immediately changed form disgruntled to awestruck.

"That's the Nightmare-Zeta?"

"Yes."

"It's… I've never seen anything like it! The design is so organic, the look just breaths advancement beyond thousands of years, and the hum of it's systems just resonates with life!"

"That's demon technology for you. Fortunately, this is the only one of this in existence."

"Why is it fortunate?"

"For one, it's an extremely destructive weapon. Secondly, the components of it's making are part of something that truly is a nightmare. If more than one of them ever existed and they met, they would bind together and would resume the identity they once served."

"How do you know this?"

"It happened once before."

"A bit cliché, isn't it?"

"Sadly." I said, "In any case, this will definitely help the situation, hold her brain up, and keep it still." He did so. The NZ transformed into a bizarre looking laser, and I aimed it at the spider like device's legs. A small beam of energy shot out and froze them solid. I put let the NZ return to it's original state before I put it into the Hammerspace cube. "Now Sheldon, remove the pestilence."

With an effortless tug, Sheldon removed the tiny machine, which caused it's legs to shatter.

"GOT IT!" He exclaimed as he held the tiny black device aloft. Then something happened… it began to pulsate and beep.

"This doesn't bode well… Quick, Sheldon, throw it out the window!"

"Which one?"

"Does it matter?!"

He ran to the north side of his garage, opened a window, and threw it as hard as he could before he slammed the window shut once again. There was an explosion outside that followed.

"That could have been messy if it decided to activate beforehand."

Sheldon slumped to the ground and wiped the sweat from his forehead. "This is more excitement than I need in a day…"

"Your not done yet, human." I said flatly, "You still need to put Jenny back together."

He got back up as soon as her heard those words. "ON I-I-IT!" He sung.

I headed for the door.

"Hey, wait!" he said. I turned to him. "Where are you going?"

"Back to… that undisclosed area I mentioned earlier. My job is done for the day." I opened the door and headed back outside, before I closed it. He called out to me.

"HEY!"

"What?"

"Thanks for saving Jenny. I don't know what I'd do without her…"

"You wouldn't be the only one…" I said ominously as I shut the door and trekked down the street. The sky was finally clear, and the orange and red of the evening gave me more incentive to walk back to base rather than teleport there.

I sighed in relief, and let my mind wander during the journey back. Nothing would make the evening go sour, I thought.

--

**(AN: Another short chapter. Yeah, well, bite me.)**


	19. High Rises and Beat Downs

Sunday, 8:15 am. I didn't feel like sleeping anymore today, so I wandered around the city. Everything was so peaceful. The day had barely just begun, and already the happiness of life crawled out of it's slumber to greet the morning with open arms. Citizens, business owners, and visitors alike all took the time to give a warming hello to each other and to anyone they passed. It was a good day. But why did I feel so depressed.

It was is if everything around me now seemed pointless. Yes, human lives were still worth protecting, but everything else didn't matter. The condition of the world, the coming war, the promise of the angels, even my own existence all seemed to be… no longer my concern. I couldn't place my finger on why I was feeling this way.

I stopped at a street corner and leaned against a flower shop wall. I looked up and my eyes met a grey scale sky, with small stems of light peeking out of from the clouds. I then felt a droplet of water against my face. Then another, and another, and not long after, it poured down enough to fill a lake. I sighed and looked down to my feet, letting the back of my head be bombarded with the little beads of water. I closed my eyes and hummed our sacred lullaby again, in a hope that I could dispel my depression.

"HEY DAMION!" a rather cheerful voice called out to me in the dreary raining scene. I stopped humming and looked off to the right, and saw XJ-9, running towards me with a blue umbrella, which replaced her right hand at the moment, held over her head. The water splashed gently with each step she took, slowing down the closer she was to me.

"Aren't you afraid you're gonna rust out here?" I asked placidly.

"Aren't you afraid you'll catch a cold out here?" she quickly rebutted, which followed a giggle.

"Not really. Haven't had one, as far as I can remember…"

"You think you're so indestructible, don't you Amoeboid?" she said mockingly.

"Perhaps. That perception, however, is of the populous' belief, not the subject's."

She grunted with intrigue before she said, "And it seems like you like to keep things technical, don't you?"

"A little order never hurt anyone." We laughed for a moment, before I cut to the question, "So, why are you out here?"

"Well, I just wanted to thank you…"

"Thank me?" I pondered, "For what?"

"Well, it's kind of strange. I woke up last night in Sheldon's garage. He said that I sorta went off my senses and picked a fight with someone. He then went on to say that someone lead me out into the forest and tore me a new exhaust pipe. Then he said he found me, lifted me up, took me to his garage, and fixed me…"

"Really…" I said in a mocking tone.

"Yeah, but I knew he was lying about the whole 'lifting me up and taking me back into Tremorton' thing. I mean, he isn't the strongest guy in town, and I am not exactly as light as an aluminum can. So I called him on it and got him to tell me who really did it. And that's why I'm here…"

"And so… you're here to thank me in advance for looking for him?" I asked jokingly.

"Very funny." She said. There was a lingering silence as the rain pattered against the metal sheets of her umbrella and the 'cloth' of my guise. Her artificial cheeks softly resonated a sky blue. "Thank you…"

"You're welcome," I said, while hundreds of thoughts plowed though my head. Isn't she the least bit curious of how I was able to bring her back into town? Shouldn't she be asking me about what happened just after she 'blacked out'? Why is she not probing Sheldon for any of this information?

The rain began to let up as the silence lingered on, while my mind was in a whirl. I looked to her. She was still standing there, still 'blushing'. I looked at the sky for a moment, then back at her, as if she didn't mind the lingering void of conversation. I then looked at my feet, and, realizing I was looking at the least interesting thing in the world to me, I looked back to her, which strangely became the most interesting. The rain began to thin out.

She leaned in closer towards me and said, "Sorry, I have to go, mom's probably expecting me back home. I'll have to see you tomorrow," just before she gave me a light kiss on my cheek. All three of my eyes lit up, causing my third one to immediately scratch itself against the fabric of my damp toque. There was a stinging sensation from my stupid action after her gesture that I, surprisingly, completely ignored. I gently placed my hand on the cheek she kissed as she leaned back and took off.

"Bye, Damion!" she shouted as she ran home in the already clearing up rain. I stood there for a moment, puzzled, utterly confused, conflicted, dumbfounded, and strangely… warm.

"She kissed me," I thought out loud, "Why?"

"Damion, come in Damion," Bizke's voice rang in my head.

"Yeah…" I replied dumbly.

"We have trouble. A giant robot is heading towards the town, and it looks like it's packing enough heat to nuke half of it. You should step up and take it down before the subject hurts herself. With that recent scuffle you had with the Target, her repairs you made that human do may not hold. Besides, you need the exercise."

"Giants exercising a nuked human… got it." I said in a haze, while I began to cross the street.

"What the hell? Did you just get hit upside the head with a-" was all the little gremlin was able to say before a car smacked me off my feet, making my fly a little ways away and land on the pavement with enough force that can send any human to the morgue. Shaken, I slowly got back up on my feet snapped my spine back into place. I heard someone approach me.

"Oh my god, kid! I am so sorry! Are you alright?"

I looked at the speaker and it was a rather wealthy business man, complete with black suit and tie, and his eyes were full of shock. I dusted myself off.

"I'll live…" I said, still bewitched by what happened prior to being run over.

"You're not going to call the insurance company on me are you?"

I wandered away from the scene.

"PLEASE DON'T SUE ME!!!" He yelled.

-------

I arrived at the east end of the city, decamouflaged and armed with the Cerberus Claw, and found myself staring at a twenty foot tall behemoth of an android, which was tearing up the city. I didn't waste any more time as I teleported to his location, directly in front of him. I whistled to get its attention. The giant turned to face me.

"Since the local authorities are out of commission at the moment," I said boldly, "I will be the cities peace coordinator for the day. So please Mr. 20 foot tall Robot, I urge you to humbly… ahem… get the hell out of this city."

It raised it's foot and tried to squash me like a bug but I caught the foot and pushed back. I watched the monstrosity of metal land on it's back side.

"Look, that will be all that I will do to you if you just take off! I'm having a good day, and it's VEEERY rare that I get one of those. Please head my advice."

The giant metal golem sat up and shot a rather powerful laser at me with it's only infrared eye, which I would have dodged easily, but my mind was incoherently fixated on something else within the back of my head that effectively prevented me to put all my concentration onto my teleportation. Next thing I knew, I was flying though the air long enough to hit a scrap metal junk heap at Mach 3 force in under a half a nano second. It hurt, I have to admit it really did hurt, my pride excluded, but it did do me a favor. It gave my mind and conflict resolving options a good kick in the ass.

I jetted out of the pile with banshee screaming fury and tackled the megalomaniacal cycloptic rust bucket, face planting it effectively with a good stomp, breaking it's 'eye' in the process. It's surface defenses activated, such as many energy type guns, flak cannons, and many, MANY rocket launchers. I used them all to my advantage, however. I had the rockets explode near the gun barrels of the flak cannons, and had lasers destroy the remaining missiles. Then, to even things out, I had the lasers open a hole that super-sized pop can before I ripped those off to clear away the last of the defenses.

I jumped down inside, tried to make as much room as possible in the metallic beast, and began to fly upwards with it, as I as I could possibly go without leaving the overworld's atmosphere. Once I got high enough, I grabbed two places in it's spine, and folded the entire cheaply constructed death-bot in half and sent it sailing into the sun. I watched it as it got smaller and smaller from my vision and just fizzle out, literally.

I decided to have some fun and decent the easy, none concentrating way and just fell back and let gravity take over. I've never really tried to sky dive for fun, after all, nor have I tried it upside down.

As I descended, and within the first few seconds, I found myself being attacked with blue streams of energy. It was all too recognizable to be left unknown. I looked up (down) and saw the target flying up towards me with no intent on a quiet and peaceful conversation. She shot at me again and I spun out of the way while I still maintained my inverted drop.

"Oh come on, XJ-9, you have to do better than that if you wanna hit this duck!" I said, using a rather corny and obscure carnival reference. As I said this, I zoomed straight past her, causing her to come to a halt in her accent, and chase me down the skyline until I had either been taken out, or had made sure that this leisure drop turned into a disaster for me.

I kept my cool, cause there would be no way she would try something overly dangerous to take me out, knowing how I beat her down the last few times.

"Look, I'm having a good day today, can't you just let me fall in piece?"

She kept on firing, with each shot getting closer and closer to it's intended target. The last shot grazes my chest armor, and just barely misses the tip of my chin. I looks back to her.

"What's your deal, XJ-9? Are you still sore about me beating the tar out of you, or are you mad that I am stealing your thunder?"

She shot another laser and it struck me square in the face. The impact was such that I started back flipping at half mach one speeds. I steadied myself in the air after a moment of the backward somersaults.

"That wasn't very nice..." I taunted. She kept firing at me with a hateful look in here artificial eyes.

"Fine..." I said flatly as I opened my arms and flattened myself out against the horizontal to the world. My open self slowed my descent by about half while Jenny zoomed past me. She looked back in shock, and I waved to her with a smirk. I could almost see her face boil over with her fury against me.

We were a fair distance away from each other at the moment, but that wasn't gonna be a problem for her. She stopped in the air for a moment, and shot back upward towards me. I began to go back into a nose dive. Within a span of three seconds, we collided with each other. She grappled my chest armor and heaved back to deliver a decent and jarring punch to my face. Before fist met nose, I caught her attack. She let go of my armor, and tried to wrench her arm free from my grip. I twirled her about like a ballroom dancer in the mid air, and her free arm that was trying to release her captive twin was flung behind her by the force of the action. To add insult to injury, I pulled her back in a way that made her twirl back to me into my personal space.

I grabbed her other arm, and held them sternly in a waltz position. I "stepped" forward and brought her a little closer to me.

"How many people," I asked her with a coo, "can honestly say that they did a little dance whilst they free fall from the stratosphere at terminal velocity?" She then swiftly stuck her foot against my chest, and launched herself off of me in a painful and forceful manner, causing me to let her go. She back flipped in mid air, stabilized herself, and faced me again.

She shot back towards me in a tackling like fashion, as if she were playing that game humans like to call "football". It caught me off guard, and before I could react, she was over head of me, clinging to my torso with her legs, keeping both of her hands free to do as she pleased. She began to pummel at my face and chest, doing as much damage as she possibly could in a less than primitive and simplistic manner. It was as if she was more intent on giving me an old fashioned beat-down rather than trying to kill me outright.

I could start to see the ground reflected on her beautiful blue eyes, and it looked to be about 20 seconds away. Things didn't seem to look to good if I didn't turn the tables on the situation. I furiously tried to gain control of her once again, and with a stroke of luck, I grabbed both of her arms, and swung her off and below me. I retained my grip on her for a little while.

Mere seconds before it looked like we would hit the ground with a steel crushing crash, I planted a foot in on her stomach, and launched her at such an angle that the impact would be minimized by at least 40%. Unfortunately, I accidentally launched her into a set of trees, which all came tumbling down as she impacted each one in her crash landing.

I stopped falling and hovered mere inches above the ground. After a moment of catching myself, I began to rise back up, trying to catch a glimpse of the angel that fell with me, and sure enough, I could see her, on the ground, pushing the massive and heavy logs off of her in annoyance.

I called out to her. "Hey! Maybe next time," I yelled with a cocky attitude, "you'll let fallen angels be. You don't need to rescue everyone!"

She yelled back, but I couldn't hear her very well due to the distance, but because I was sure she could hear me with her audio sensors, I believe she might have tried to verbally retaliate against my comment... and then perhaps insult me.

"Yeah, sure, little miss nine. I'll catch you later"

I began to fly off, and as I did, I could hear a scream in utter fury. I smirked for a bit, thought about this moment and earlier today... and I blushed...


	20. Dominate

"Sure Sheldon... I'll be right over," I said, without missing a beat, "by the way... how did you tap into-... or really... very impressive! I seriously underestimated you, human... alright then, I'm taking off right now... take it easy."

I turned off the "spiritual radio" in my watch, packed up any equipment I needed into my disguise's signature backpack, and headed over to the inventive human's homestead... or, so I would have if things would have ran smoothly today. Instead, as I made my way to the edge of Tremorton, I was suddenly blind sighted by a vicious energy attack, knocking me off my feet, and landing me a puddle of mud.

As I shook off the injury, rubbing my head lightly, and got up with semi-liquid dirt running down the back of my legs, I scanned the area to find out who was responsible.

"You know you're gonna have to pay for these pants, right?" I said jokingly with a hint of irritation.

A voice peculiarly familiar hissed out of the darkness of the adjoining forest, "I'm terribly sorry... I'll get right on that when I've disassembled you."

I turned to the source, "Oh... it's you... Didn't I already teach you a lesson, or..." I deactivate my camouflage, and toss my bag to the side, before I continued my question, "... am I just gonna have to spank you harder?"

The Cluster zealot chuckled lightly, with slight offence to my words. "Yes, I did underestimate you the first time we met, but, with the research I've been doing, I'm confident I won't make the same mistake twice."

"What do you mean? I don't remember volunteering to be your lab rat"

"Not directly, no..." Zelot said with a smile on his face... if head had a proper mouth to smile with, "but, you must remember your rather... unpleasant run-in with X-J9, right?"

I let out an inaudible growl, gritting my teeth lightly.

"Or, perhaps my little colossus that was running amok in the town rings a bell?"

My knuckles cracked as a fist formed tightly without my conscious effort.

"Yes, creature, I've been watching you closely these past couple weeks since you showed up and deleted my efforts to assimilate... or destroy... the X-J9 unit. I was rather astonished that you were able to neutralize my nanobot without doing... well... highly significant damage to X-J9. I was also rather surprised that you were not only able subdue my war machine, but was also able to damage it beyond repair, and have enough energy to throw it into the sun."

He starts clapping together his robotic claws. "And, above all, you were able to accomplish this as a biological organism. A fact I still have a hard time processing..."

"What do you want, you robotic piece of shit?" I finally snapped out.

"What a mouth on you..." he said coldly, transforming his right arm into a rather sinister looking blade, "just one more reason to erase you from the universe."

Before I had any time to react, he charged at me, ready to swipe at my neck in execution. Within the last possible second, a really close call, if I remember correctly, I dodged by rolling forward, ducking under him and his attack, and quickly standing back up, ready to defend myself. He quickly turned back to me after missing the strike, and charged back at me with grim determination.

Thinking on me feet, I shifted to the open side of his rapidly advancing frame, enough to avoid the blade, and let his body run into my back with a steel bending slam.

He fell flat backward, and landed in the mud puddle I had the first displeasure of landing in. If robots could breathe, I probably knocked the wind out of him.

I ran up, and was about to finish the job with a jarring curb stomp, but he was able to roll just out of the way, and rise back for another go.

He got in close for confrontation, and, while strafing to the right while staying, took a few heavy swipes and stabs at me, trying to inflict some fair amount of damage on me. I ducked and dodged his efforts, all while staying close to him. As he weaved to the side, trying to get the best shot at slicing my side, I sidestepped with a twirl, and gave him a left hook to the side of his cranium, sending him sprawling to the ground.

The impact didn't keep him down for long, as he whisked back up as if he were a feather.

"You never cease to continue to impress and irritate me, organism" he hissed, before lunging back towards me with an elbow to the diaphragm.

I jumped back, trying to catch my knocked out breath, and while trying to ignore the pain. He lunged at me again to get in close while I was in the middle of focusing on the impact. He swung, trying to slice my neck or lop off my head, but, with effort and a little reflex, I ducked in time, rose back up with an uppercut, and launched him into the air with a slight arc.

Before he landed a few feet away from me, I grabbed onto the bottom of his robe, pulled his horizontal form violently towards me, and smashed him the rest of the way down with a violent punch, causing him to bounce a little off the ground.

I back stepped as he rose back up in a hurry to re-confront me.

"You are truly a decent warrior for a biological life form. I'm sure that if you were of mechanical origin, like myself and the Cluster, you could have been a champion among our people, a true ruler to guide our glorious civilization into conquering the universe, and ridding it of this biological stain forever!"

I laughed lightly.

"I do not jest." He irately spat.

"Neither do I." I literally spat at his feet.

He looked down, and back stepped in reaction to the distraction, while I jumped forward to his personal location, and gave him a punishing kick to the side of his face, sending him flying, HARD, into the sky, arcing to a nearby mountain crag, which he hit with a steel crushing smash, and fell into the forest below, no doubt with major damages to his casing and systems, and his ego.

"Don't mess with a demon..." I wiped the tip of my nose with my thumb.

I finally reached Sheldon's garage under my disguise, and tapped on the door. It swung open rather quickly with a rather pleasantly expressed Sheldon being framed by the door.

"May I come in?"

He took a step back to allow me passage. I took off the book bag, and tossed it onto the lightly damaged couch, before I sat in it with a slump.

"Sorry I'm late, but I had a run in with... an old friend."

The dark haired geeky boy turned his visual attention to some various knick-knacks he was designing for god knows what.

"Did your 'friend' give you any trouble?" he said, emphasizing sarcastically on that particular word of endearment.

"Lots... but, he was also kind enough to share some info on the recent happenings around town"

Sheldon didn't bat an eye in my direction, but, I could feel he knew what I was talking about. I shifted to get a little comfort in the couch I was sitting in, while I watched the human tinker with his toys and devices.

"He even admitted to being responsible for that cycloptic war machine that almost tore the town apart."

"Figured as such..." he finally replied, "Are you gonna let Jenny know about any of this?"

"Can't... as much as I'd want to, I'd blow my cover if gave her any clues."

He sighed with a bit of misery.

To change the subject, I said, "So, what are you working on?"

"Oh, just a little something to make your data collecting a little easier... just give me one second..." he said with a slightly more cheerful mood, "... a-a-and, done!"

Sheldon, whipping around in my direction, displayed a rather primitive looking device, built specifically to be strapped on around someone's torso. It kinda looked like bondage gear that the 'Coil' tribe in our ancestry used to wear on an almost constant basis, except, he was threaded with various wires, had a little device at its center, and didn't seem to look that uncomfortable.

I deliberately pointed at it, asking, "... what the hell is that?"

"It doesn't have a name yet, but, this handy little device will read the power and speed of any incoming attack, as well as track your own strikes on whom you are fighting. It's remote too, so, I'll be able to collect the data over here, while you're out doing the field work!"

I look at it, then I look at him, then I look at it again.

"You honestly don't expect me to wear that, now do you?"

"Uhm, yeah... kinda."

I got up, and walked over to him, staring at that device, with it only reminding me of "The Coil' and their S&M wear.

"No."

"Why not?" He asked, a little confused.

"Glad you asked." I snatched it out of his hands. He protested to that, but allowed me to explain.

"First off..." I pointed to the device at its epicentre, "this 'thing' will stick out like a sore thumb on me if I wear it. And, if anyone smart enough sees it, they will suspect that you built it, and that'll blow my mission to nuclear dust. Next, how do you expect to have this strapped on me while I have these?" I point to the spider like appendages on my back, "Lastly..."

I toss it back at him, which he catches rather clumsily.

"I'm not much into bondage gear, Sheldon."

"This isn't-," he protested, only to realize the similarity. He shakes his head to clear that thought away. "Look, I'll add a cloaking device to it so that it can't be seen on you, but, I bet this would be a lot easier and a little more credible if you had some actual data to use rather than just guessing things."

I paced a little, thinking about that device, and how it MAY help me in my little objective, and how it might hinder me.

"What if..." I started, "I use it, but it get's damaged or smashed during that time?"

Sheldon pondered for a moment. "I guess... it's a risk we'd have to take."

I looked at him, looked at it, then pulled out the hammerspace cube and extracted my chart for the mission. Gazing over the results, i think of how everything until now was based on intuition, and how some actual data and evidence to support these tests would be a much better stepping stone for this mission, just like the human said. I turn back to him.

"Very well, Sheldon... you win."


	21. Lies and Black Magic

Monday manifested rather quickly, as the early sleep that I was in dire need for made it so. I rose up rather late in the morning, around 7:00 or so, eyes dipped black with exhaustion. Realizing that I was gonna be late, I packed up my stuff, finished any of the remaining assignments I was handed, and trudged to the high school, still a little groggy from last night.

The suns light shone through the city's structures, creating thin beams that would dance on the walls and streets that were not in obstruction to the solar energy. The dew on the grass lightly glazed my shoes' fabric with each step I took on it while I passed through shortcuts in the greener of the neighbourhoods on the way to the school.

Moments after I approached my destination, and an even shorter time after I opened the heavy doors that creaked in protest under the pressure and under their own weight, I passed through the hallways. Looking around, I noticed that the other students were moving about as if they had more than enough time to piddle around before they had to attend their class, and when I looked at my watch, I would realize that they weren't in the wrong to do so, as the time that was told said 7:45.

Sighing, I slowly made my way to my locker, passing the other humans with little to no effort at all, as I was getting much more used to navigating the crowded areas than I was much earlier in the month.

"2 weeks..." I leaned my head against the lockers, staring into the rather bare looking one that I was using, eyeing the timetable that I had posted in it on my first day here that did very little to dress up the tan coloured steel insides.

"You'd think the month so far would be easy..." I said to myself out loud, "but so far, I've had more than a few major fights on my hands, and I'm guaranteed a couple more yet. I mean, as a demon, combat is more of game or a sport to me rather than a risky deed to be performed in an emergency, but the last few encounters have only proved that the game was over a long time ago, and now everything is connected to life or death matters... not for myself, but for others."

I sigh, "And, on top of that, because of my close interaction with these humans and the target, I've been developing something that could cost me my life sometime down the road."

I close the locker quickly, and slump to the floor, back pack sitting beside me. I stay silent, while I listen for the bell so that I can stop dwelling on the recent events and those yet to come. But, it wasn't a bell, but a voice that snapped me out of my train of thought.

"Damion?" a red haired boy said, "you alright?"

I looked up at him with a hesitant smile, trying to hide my blue expression. "Yeah, I 'm fine, Bradley" I stood back up, and picked up my book bag. "Just a little groggy."

"Understandable," he said as he wound his arm around me in a buddy like fashion, "we all usually get that way during the third week at school. It's just the fact that nobody really wants to be here. Even Jenny was the same way when she finally came out of hiding from Mrs. Wakeman's place. But, we all get used to it over time, and accept that we're gonna be here for another year or two... unless you're in the 12th grade, in which case, you're pretty much home free."

"Yeah... Uhm, can you let go of me?" I said, implying my discomfort from his arm around my shoulder.

"Oh..." he promptly let go, "sorry... I forgot you're not from around here. I didn't mean to disrespect any of your customs or anything."

My eyes narrowed at that rather stupid remark, "I'm from Canada... not some exotic location in Europe."

"I thought Canada was in Europe."

I was almost speechless from that. Despite this human having a genuine heart of gold, which is actually rather rare for most mortals as primitive as mankind, he really wasn't all there in the head... Kinda reminded me of a fictional red-haired guy who was cryogenically frozen for 1000 years.

I shook that 74 year old pop culture reference out of my head as the bell rang.

"I guess we should head to our classes, eh Damion?" He said, breaking the silence.

"Yeah... See yeah."

"Oh, hey, wait! I forgot to mention something. Me, Jenny, and Sheldon are gonna go to pick up a couple books from the library this afternoon, and we were wondering if you'd like to join us"

I didn't know what they were doing that for, but, I could use an excuse to hang out with these humans, and stay close to Jenny.

"Sure, I'll be there."

He took off down the hall to get to his first class of the day. I followed for a moment, before I broke off from his path to go to my class.

School was pretty much uneventful and rather quick moving the entire day, except for the pestering of some certain humans. The Crust cousins, for one, whom hadn't stopped their plot to have me change my look and personality to conform to a trendier look and have me alienate the friends I have acquired for a more popular clique. Disgruntled and pestered they were when I wavered them off like flies, silently expressing my lack of interest in their gestures. The second set of annoying mortals that slowed down my day was Don Prima and his cousin, now wholly convinced that I was the next generation essence of popularity that must be refined for the student body. It was the exact same song and dance for them as was performed by the earlier two popularity insects, and the exact same disinterest I had in the efforts presented.

As school came to a relatively swift end, save for the aforementioned speed bumps, I made my way down to the town library, where I would keep my promise to be there. I located the group near the non-fiction section, already looking through the books available already. The red-haired teen that invited me approached me with a warm smile.

"Hey, D! Glad you could make it." He said to me with enthusiasm, where he was immediately shushed by the nearby librarian.

"Yeah, you're welcome..." I muttered, while thinking, _D? Is it so hard to announce my name?_

He walked me over to the rest of the group, whom were thumbing through different books that all detailed a common theme... the occult.

"Uhm... I beg your pardon, guys but... what are you doing? Isn't this stuff rather farfetched to be taken seriously?"

"If it were any other time before a couple weeks ago," she started, pulling out a mock _Necronomicon_, flipping through the pages quickly, and putting it back while she shook her head, "I wouldn't be going through this stuff, but, ever since that... thing showed up, I haven't been able to take it down. At first, I thought that maybe it might be from a race of alien warriors who play with other worlds and their strongest before wiping out the entire population."

"Oh?"

"But, I've never heard, or seen, an alien race do the things I saw that creature do..." she said while picking up a book titled _DAEMONOLOGY: Occultist's Guide to Elementals, Ancient and Elder Ones, and Dwellers from Below_ and placed it on a stack of other books before continuing, "then Sheldon suggested to me that our visitor may not be from another world, but from..." she trailed off, looking just in front of her feet, hinting that 'our visitor' may be from 'hell'.

I glared at Sheldon, whom shrugged lightly and innocently. "Is that so?" I said with a bit of a hiss towards the dark haired boy, whom mouthed the words 'I'm sorry' with silent regret.

"Yeah," she said, "Only problem is..." She picks up another book, this one titled _Elder Gods: Encyclopaedia of Extra Dimensional Enigmas_ and places it back after thumbing through it for a moment, "... I can't find enough proper info on what it could be. Only this occultist junk, which may not be even remotely close to being a little true."

"I can see your problem... Uhm, you mind if I have a word in private with Sheldon for a moment?"

"For what?" She asked, without missing a beat.

"I need his help with something... for class." I lied through my teeth.

She looked at me in a way that seemed like she detected the lie. "You? Needing Help?"

"Yes"

"You, Damion, the same guy who proved to the school on the first day that you were smarter than me, needing help... for class?"

Feeling like I was caught in my pathetic little lie, I thought of something quick to try to diminish her suspicions. "I'm not good with tools for construction and shop work, and Sheldon has offered to give me a few pointers... I just wanna talk to him alone for a minute about it." Yes, it was another lie, but I didn't have much of a choice, save for exposing the truth at the expense of everyone's current or future well being.

She nodded with a cautious approval. Me and Sheldon stepped away from the other two and went down a couple isles, just far enough away to be within listening range.

"What the hell, Sheldon?" I asked in protest, "I thought we agreed that you'd keep the nature of my existence a secret."

"I'm sorry, ok? I didn't mean to give her a hint. It just sort of slipped out."

I poked his shoulder with sharp demand, as I said, "Be more careful next time. If she figures me out, my mission fails, the human race will be damned, and it will be your fault... got it?"

He whimpers and gulps to that dark proposition, not wanting to be the one who ruined the one hope to keep the world safe. "G-got it."

"Good... now... deep breaths, and calm down. We gotta put up a show for Jenny to make her believe the lie I just told her."

Sheldon breathed in, and sighed deep, cooling down from the worry.

"Ok, now, follow my lead..."

We walked back to Jenny and Brad, still looking through the isle for more occult books. As we approached, we began to speak out loud about the fine art of basic construction and welding, as if we were just finishing our conversation on it.

"So, if I want to cut metal tubes and piping with a blow torch, I should turn it up to high, and if I want to weld pieces together, I should turn it down lower?"

"Uhhhm... sure?"

"Thanks Sheldon, you've been a big help."

"So, how's the little tutor session you had with Sheldon, Damion?" Jenny asked with a small smirk.

"Fine. I think I understand it now."

"Ok... then, I guess you won't mind if I dropped by your shop class on Wednesday?"

"What for?"

"I just wanna see how mister 'I'm better at school than you' fairs in shop class, now that you got your help." She taunts, referring to the day she met me in my human persona when I corrected her over and over again in history class and trounced her in Phys. Ed. in a game of dodge ball. I guess she never completely got over it, despite acting friendly towards me these past couple weeks.

"You'll be surprised," I replied

"I'm sure I will," she said with a sarcastic but playful mock.

While we were going back and forth like that, and while Brad was watching us for the sake of amusement, Sheldon turned his back on us and continued to go through the books, looking for something that was in relation to me and my kind. While he was doing his best to find something useful for the target, he noticed something in the corner of his eye. Sliding past us, he went over to a rather ragged and very old looking book. The cover almost looked like it was in type of leather no one has ever used before, and it had no title on the front to identify itself with. He opened it, cautiously, thinking that it might fall apart if handled with anything less than the utmost care. He gazed upon the text, which was written in a hieroglyphic language he's never seen before.

Something deep within his soul stirred and his heart started beating hard against his ribcage, as if he were seeing something so utterly forbidden for human eyes. While I, Jenny, and Brad were still preoccupied with our pointless, but entertaining situation, Sheldon closed the book, and snuck away from us, signed out the text he discovered, and left the building without another word.


	22. Powers of Guardians and Angels

"Hey, where'd Sheldon go?" Brad spoke up, interrupting my conversation with Jenny.

In reaction to his question, I looked beside and behind myself, seeing only the empty spaces Sheldon used to occupy. I also noticed a shift in the books... as if a larger text was removed from its place, and taken away.

Sheldon must have found the proper book for Jenny to use, i thought, but a question cemented itself on my consideration. If he found the right book, why didn't he give it to her, and furthermore, why did he leave with it without a word?

I stood there for a minute, pondering, only realizing that i was staring off into space when Brad waved his hand in front of my face, saying "Hello, Earth to D?" I shook my head and turned back to the two teens.

"Sorry... " I muttered, "Lost my head for a second."

"Happens to everyone," Jenny replied to my comment, "Some more literally than others..."

The two teenagers laughed at the corniness of the joke, while I simply smiled in silence, not wanting to tarnish this small moment happiness.

"Anyway, I should get going," I said to them finally, "I'm sorry i really haven't been much help"

"That's alright," Jenny said, "I think I have what I need, anyway."

We said our good-byes, and I left them to deal with the books they looked through and picked out. I walked out of the building quickly, and ducked into a back alley, calling Bizke.

"What's up, doc?" I heard the little creature say on the other end.

"I need you to do me a favour. I need you to quickly check and see if Sheldon got home."

Silence, then "Why? Did something happen."

"No, but he did disappear from my line of sight, and he might also have book from the 'occult' section in this human library."

More silence, then "What's the big deal? Human occultists are usually crackpots and lunatics."

"I'd rather be safe than sorry. Just go and check on him."

"Fine," shouted the gremlin.

I stood there in the darkness of the alley, staring out to the warm glow of the evening light pouring down the streets. I smiled a little... but, that smile turned to a gaping awe when a brilliant yellow light emitted itself in the distance, almost drowning the warm orange hue of the evening, and extinguishing the darkness of the alleyway.

"What in the-" was all I could say before I was cut off by Bizke.

"Damion, we've got a problem! Get your ass over here!"

I felt puzzled from the sudden turn of events, and asked "What's going on over there?"

"There's a bright yellow forcefield covering that human's house! It's far too powerful, i can't get through it. It must be-"

"Aw, hell..." I said as i started to run as fast as i could towards Sheldon's. "Hold on, i'll be there."

I jumped up one building, and bounded from rooftop to rooftop, gaining speed with each leap, trying to reach Sheldon's home, hoping I'd get there in time... before 'it' consumed him.

-

* * *

I was able to reach Sheldon's homestead, but it was just as I feared... the yellow dome-like force field was printed with Enochian characters, symbols and incantations of our ancestors from a language long since forgotten by man until it obscurely resurfaced once upon a time, and became more of a myth to mankind, just like the Greek "gods". This was a force that was just as powerful as it was arcane, and it made the stone throw distance between me and the door more in the league of a marathon, at the very least.

"What in Michael's name is an Enochian text doing here?" I thought out loud.

"I don't know," Bizke replied to my open question, "but if that kid is in there, he may as well be dog food."

"Yeah, I know what Enochian text can do to mortals." I stood there for a minute, rather panicked, and thought out my next crucial move.

"So, what's the plan? Are we gonna ditch the kid?" I turned to him at that comment. At first, i thought the gremlin was joking, but when i looked at him, i could see the dead seriousness in his eyes, and i knew why.

Without a wasting one more second, I ran up to the field of pure energy, and pushed against it. Rays of light escaped from where I was pushing, and sparks of residue energy climbed up my arms, shocking me with enough force to kill a human. But I pressed in further, not willing to give up... not willing to let him die like this.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Struggling, i choked out my reason, "I gave him my word..."

With one more shove, i passed through the dome of Enochian energy, and fell to the ground before the front door in near exhaustion. I staggered as i rose back to my feet, and opened the door to an illuminated room of nearly pure light. I saw Sheldon, as he was turned away from me, looking down on the book on the counter of his workshop. I could hear him chant a single line over and over again. He said:

"C BAB DE IA-IDA OD IALPRG C DON-AS-DOG-AMA-TA-TAS-TOS, YOL-CAM CAN-SE A UNPH DE A LON-DOH C CORD-ZIZ, NAN-TA"

I ran up to him, and swiped the book from his grasp, closing it as the pages made a definite thud. The Enochian energy dissipated, Sheldon dropped to his knees, and the light that engulfed the room disappeared almost immediately, all at once.

I watched the teen struggle back to his feet, holding his head with one hand, as if someone repeatedly punched him in the forehead (which I was honestly considering to do).

"Uhhhhh... what happened?" He mumbled. I dropped the closed book on the counter in front of him, making him jumped.

"You almost died, that's what happened." I said as i glared at him. He looked at me, confused and a little frightened.

He replied, "I almost died? Why?"

I turned from him, picking the book back up, and held it in the air. "You shouldn't have taken this book, Sheldon." I turned back to him, presenting it close enough for him to see it properly. "Do you know what it could have done to you! And, what's worse is that you read from it out loud? That incantation you said might have brought something from our planes of existence to this one! You could have jump started Armageddon!"

"I'm sorry!" He pleaded while he looked away from me and that book, "I couldn't help it. It was as if I was taking it against my own free will." He dropped back to his knees. I could smell his new found fear, a fear once forgotten by man. I realized then what i was doing to the poor child, and sighed. As approached him, I put the book off to the side. I placed my hand on his shoulder, and spoke again.

"Sheldon... I'm sorry. I know it's not your fault. It's hard for mortals to resist materials as enchanted as that book... Enochian can be a very persuasive language, even if the one being persuaded doesn't understand it."

He looked up at me, as if i were some kind of guardian angel, telling him everything was gonna be fine.

"Come on," I said, offering my hand, "i'll help you up."

The dark haired boy took my hand, and I helped him stand once again. A silence lingered for a while, as Sheldon took the time to calm down, and i took the time to walk over to the battered couch and sit down. I stared at that book, thinking, what if Jenny got to it rather than Sheldon? As she wasn't biologically alive, there was no real way of telling what the results would be, which was rather frightening.

"I shouldn't have taken that book," Sheldon said, as he leaned against the counter, staring at the text the same way I was.

Silence again, and then I spoke up. "Maybe not, Sheldon... What if someone else got to it first? What if someone got to it, and no one would be able to rescue them from its grip? Or, god forbid, what if it fell into the wrong hands?"

He looked at me, realizing the idea of something that powerful falling into the hands of a capable villain.

"If some force of evil were able to use it and control it," he said, trailing off with a worried tone.

I stood up, staggering a little, still drained from what just happened, and approached the book again, hand placed against its spine.

"So," i said, "it was probably for the better that you found it now, rather than leave it for someone else to take up... and that you brought it here rather than hand it to Jenny. Because, now we can do something about it with little hassle."

"Are you gonna destroy it?" He asked.

"I can't, Sheldon," i replied, "Enochian text is protected by strong magic that keeps it from being damaged or destroyed."

"Well, how come it looks like it could fall apart at any moment?" he asked in persistence.

"Just because it looks frail doesn't necessarily mean it's vulnerable. Don't judge a book by its cover, especially this one." I finally picked it up, and Sheldon flinch as I did. I spoke to him some more, "Don't worry. It won't hurt you. It's absolutely harmless, if it's shut, and if you don't read from it out loud."

"O-ok," he said with a slight whimper.

I stared at its front and back cover, before i said "it's sometimes kinda hard to believe that something like this can cause so much trouble, eh?"

Sheldon said nothing. I sighed, and called for Bizke, asking him to bring my backpack. A few moments of silence followed, before the gremlin suddenly appeared beside me. He looked at me, and then looked at Sheldon.

"So, he's still alive?" He said seriously. Sheldon took offence, for obvious reasons.

"Not now, Gremlin. Give me my backpack, and go back to hideout."

"As your wish, your excellency," he retorted sarcastically, before he dropped the backpack he carried, and disappeared once again.

I stuffed the book inside, and closed it up, before slinging it over my shoulder. I looked to Sheldon once more.

"Well, i guess i'll be seeing you later. And, don't worry, no one will ever find this book again."

I was about to leave, when Sheldon spoke up, finally. "Wait, Damion... Can you tell me what i said... what i kept chanting?".

I paused for a minute, thinking about the words he was forced to say under the enchantment of the Enochian magic. I turned back to anser him.

"My Enochian to Daemonik is a little rusty, but... i think you said, in your English language, 'O powers of The Highest and the flame of hell-fire, bring forth a mighty creation of wrath to the kingdom of man, Earth'.

He looked at me with a confused but worried look.

"That incantation might have brought something here... but, there is no telling where it ended up. There's a good chance that whatever you summoned might be at the bottom of the ocean, so don't panic, alright?"

"Alright," he said with a sigh. I could still sense his worry. To be honest, though, i was worried too. True that there is a good chance that it is a sunken treasure, but there is still that lingering chance that it might be somewhere on this planet, either hidden from prying eyes or out in public. Really, only time will tell the outcome.

I waved good-bye to Sheldon, and walked home, wanting to enjoy the last remaining evening light that was now giving the town a warm red hue.

-

* * *

As i approached the beach, where the sun was setting behind the sea in the beautifully coloured horizon, I took off my backpack, and opened it once again. I pulled out the book that almost cost a life today, and, with some discarded rope and a rock, I tied it on as a weight, and threw it as far as I could out to sea.

I watched as it sailed through the air until it was high and far enough out of my range of vision, until all i could see was the sun set. I walked a few steps backward, and sat on a log as i continued to watch that simple, but beautiful, marvel of nature. The light that shone over the horizon and spread across the sky felt so welcoming that the troubles of today seemed to melt away. It was a kind of light that was indiscriminate and so forgiving.

It was a kind of light even angels would want to be near.


	23. Passion, Pride, and Lack of Patience

Tuesday dawned and pushed me back into the waking mortal world. I continued my charade, playing the part of a Human boy, returning to Tremorton High to "continue my studies". While the hours began to pass by me, I made a decision to test Jenny once again in the approaching Sunday while I had the chance. Technically, I already fought her the required three times, but I didn't count the last two encounters due to here being controlled by a nanobot in the second confrontation and because I didn't actually attack her in the third. So I went ahead and marked it on my results board for time duration. I then fabricated a message on a blank white sheet of paper, demanding that Jenny come to Main Street at 4:00pm Sunday. I signed it under my fake persona, Xerox, and tucked it into my backpack. I figured it would be best if I hand it to Sheldon to deliver it on "Xerox's" behalf, and so, I waited for the lunch hour, the perfect time to find him.

As classes melded together in my lack of attention for them, the lunch period approached rather quickly, allowing me to set my next plan of action in motion.

I walked to the cafeteria, got in line for lunch, grabbed a couple pieces of pizza, and proceeded to look for Sheldon. I found him sitting in the back corner alone. Brad and Jenny probably had other things they needed to take care of, I thought. I joined Sheldon, and offered him one of my pizzas.

"What's this for?" he asked me.

"Isn't it customary, or at least polite, for a human to offer something before joining another in a social situation?"

Sheldon let out a half smile. "Thanks."

"You're welcome, but that's not all I came here for." I said frankly.

"I had a feeling. What do you need?"

I pulled my backpack onto the table and pulled a piece of paper out of it, offering it to the dark haired boy, "I need you to deliver this note to Jenny. Make up some story that you found it somewhere."

"Why can't you do it?"

"Jenny knows you well enough to trust that you didn't write the letter. If I approach her with it, there's a chance she might figure out I made it. And that will-"

"- blow your cover, yes I know," he interrupted as he took the letter from my hand. He read it quickly before looking back at me. "Another combat test for her, I assume. Are you gonna use the power scanner?"

"If it didn't have the benefit of providing evidence of my results, I would have said no."

"Good, then I'll see you Sunday to set it up and test it at… would 12:00 be alright?"

I nodded grudgingly, still hating the idea of having a device like that strapped to me. The last thing I wanted was to feel like one of the Coil.

* * *

Friday evening. As I departed Tremorton High once again, thinking about the upcoming Sunday, I did not expect the surprise attack from –

"HEY, D!" Brad shouted as he lightly tackled into me in a playful manner. "What's up?"

"Not much... Just making plans," I said cryptically.

"Cool, cool... Those plans don't involve you at the BAHRAM Dance, do they?"

The words brought up a confusing feeling within me, and a recent memory. Jenny talked about that very same event not too long ago, mentioning how it was such a big deal to her mother, how it's supposed to be ten times better than an event she referred to as a "prom", how she was getting ready to look her best for it...

The red haired teen looked at me with curiosity before saying "You are thinking about it, aren't you? Did you ask anyone out yet?"

The questions caught me by surprise, and all I could say was, "Well, uhm, Jenny-", before Brad cut me off.

"You're gonna ask her out, aren't you?" he said with a sly grin.

"Well, actually-"

"You already did, didn't you? You sly dog," he interrupted with another grin.

I stayed silent, trying to hold down a rising blush. I had not asked, but part of me was seriously considering it... and liking it.

"You know, D?" he said, "I was thinking about taking Jenny to the dance myself, seeing as we're as close as friends can get."

I looked at him in questioning. What did he mean? What were his thoughts on XJ-9?

"I mean," He continued, "I've always wondered what it would be like if... you know... we were BF and GF... even for just one night, just to see what its like."

"Oh," was all I could say to that. It was then I understood that he, like Sheldon, also held something to the blue clad machine, but I sensed that there was something a little more in his regards compared to Sheldon. I thought, perhaps, that this boy saw her as a person and a dear friend, and not just a robot superhero that just happens to be female.

He lightly punched my shoulder as he said, "Don't tell Sheldon I said that. He'd probably flip."

"Sure, no problem," I said as I pretended to rub my arm.

"Ok. I gotta jet. Folks want me to take care of Tuck while they have a night out on the town," He said as he started running towards the neighbourhood to the west, "Chat with yah later!"

"See yah," I replied, waving goodbye.

I kept on going straight, entering the town, walking the busy streets as shoppers tried to get their last hour errands done before all of the doors closed. The sun was just beginning to drop down behind the buildings before me, preparing for another night.

While wandering without a care, I came across the town square, where Jenny was honoured a while ago before she went berserk. Everything was so clean and the citizens that visited that spot were calm and content, as if nothing ever happened there. Perhaps they were just used to strange events like that freak-out Jenny had.

I walked south of the town square, right up to a pristine looking building titled "Tremorton 1st City Bank". The greed within the walls didn't entice me, but the way the building was constructed, with the obvious art deco design made me wonder why humans would make a place so grand looking house such a thing as money. I never found real value out of the paper and metal I was given, which was rather evident with my strange decision to buy a $20 CD for $100, and then give that same disk away for free.

I laughed a little, thinking one day they'll learn they don't need it as much as they think...

Just then, there was a loud explosion coming from the Tremorton City Bank. It was under attack from 5 rather shifty and clichéd looking thieves you'd ever see. Dark clothes, sweatpants, ski-masks, the works. Before I knew what was going on, three of them grabbed me, jumped into the back of an open van, shut the doors, and immediately took off.

While I was trying to keep my cool and not unveil my true self to those thieving (and kidnapping) chumps, they began to talk amongst themselves.

"Just great, you moron! What are we gonna do with the kid?" one said in spite.

"I was thinking we could use him as a hostage until we could get out of the state," Another replied.

I wasn't planning on taking a surprise road trip, so I decided to thwart those fools the best way I could. I lifted my leg up just high enough, getting ready to stomp. Before one of them could ask, "Hey kid, what are you doing?" I thrust my foot downward as hard as I could, through the floor of the van and against the road, forcing the van to suddenly flip forward, tumble, and roll for a little bit down the street before it came to a complete halt.

I crawled out of the van, feeling shaken like a baby's rattle, but otherwise ok. Looking down at my feet, I rubbed my head slightly, feeling a little light from the experience of physics at its worst.

"Next time," I said to myself, "I'll just go demon. I don't EVER want to do something that dumb again."

A familiar sound caught my slightly rattled attention. Mini-rockets slowing to a stop, and metal boots walking towards me and the wreck. Then, a voice I was very glad to hear today. I looked up, and smiled slightly.

"Damion?" Jenny said, "What happened to you? Why are you so close to this wreck?"

I explained to her that I was suddenly kidnapped while I took a stroll downtown. When she asked about the wreck, I lied, suggesting that maybe they hit a rock of some sort.

"Wow, that's rather odd." She said. I was afraid she'd catch me in a lie, but I could see that perhaps that because was a little shaken up, which I was, that I might not have the story straight.

"Sure as hell caught those robbers off guard," I replied.

"Speaking of which," she replied as she ran to the wreck and gathered up the thieves. I started to hear sirens, and sure enough, the local authorities showed up to take the offenders to jail.

"Looks like there's one missing," I could hear her say to one of the officers. She returned to me with a serious look on her face. She said to me, "You better go home. One of those crooks is still on the loose, and I don't know what he might do."

"I think I can take care of myself, Jenny" I said sharply, feeling like she was treating me like a weak little human. But then I thought about it for a moment. That's exactly what I was trying to pose as. I sighed, feeling conflicted with my cover, and my pride.

Before she could repeat the order, I interjected, saying, "Sorry for the outburst, Jenny... I'll be going home now."

She looked at me in silence for a moment or two as I walked away. And just before she flew away, I looked back at her, catching the blue streak and jet streams.

I turned back, and decided to try and take a walk around the town again, to clear my head after this hectic and kinda embarrassing afternoon. I could always return to base later, after all.

* * *

As it was nearing Dusk, I noticed that people began to become scarce. The street lamps began to turn on, and most of the shops and businesses closed down for the night. The suns set was almost complete, as the deep reds and oranges of the sky gave way to deep blues and an approaching black. Things felt a little more like home, as the darkness began to loom nearer.

I began to lose myself in the feeling of the grim beauty of the creeping night. I began to hum that old little song once again to myself, letting my mind wander as I continued to walk down the street without a care.

In my serenity, however, I was suddenly grabbed by an unknown being from the alleyway, and tossed against the wall at the far end. If I had paid any attention, the attacker wouldn't have succeeded. I quickly regained my senses, and realized who attacked me. It was one of the thieves. I didn't notice before, since it happened so fast at the time, but he seemed to be a bigger man, rather muscular.

"I don't know how you stomped a hole though the truck, punk," he started, "but I'm gonna make sure that the next thing that's stomped on is you."

He approached me, holding a bat.

"You're making a mistake," I said ominously.

"No, I'm sure you're the one who did it," he said, as he charged at me and swung the bat at my head.

I caught it, to his surprise, pulled it and him close to me, punched him in the stomach, and pulled the bat out of his hand. He staggered backward in pain and shock, and as he looked up at me, I could see a mix of fury and fear enveloped his eyes.

I glared at him with an evil, toothy smile, before I broke the bat in half. "You should have gone to prison like your friends. But you didn't, and now you're trying to mess with me. You tested my patience, and now you're gonna pay the price," I said frighteningly calm. He tried to run, but I teleported in front of him. He fell backward from the surprise, and started crawling away on his back.

"Wh-... who... what are you?" he mumbled. I chuckled, watching this tough guy criminal cower before what he thinks is a teenage boy.

I decided it would be fun to scare him, like I did to Sheldon, but not as lightly. I turned off my camo, and showed him my true form. Then, in a slow and low voice, I said to him, "The boogieman."

I then proceeded to transform my face into a more demonic form. My mouth got wider, growing long jagged teeth that lined the mouth from ear to ear. My eyes became a glowing evil yellow before turning pure white. In a deep growling voice, I told him to turn himself in to the authorities. And then, when he was whimpering like a child, I let out a roar only a demon could bellow.

The thief ran out of that alley screaming and crying that night, and I knew exactly where he was going, for if he didn't, I promised him I'd do more than just go bump in the night.


	24. Restraints

Saturday, 1:30 PM. I spent the day wandering around Tremorton mall on my own. I was familiar with it, since Jenny played as a tour guide and showed me around during my first week in the mortal realm, but I wanted to know why teens found it so fascinating (and, also to get a feel for the area, just in case I would have to fight there). The whole building was crowded with teenagers and families, mixed with the odd older individual that belonged in neither category. I watched them move to and from place to place in irregular patterns, like ants following an unmarked path to an unknown destination. Unknown only to the onlooker, at least.

I sighed as I continued through the moving and fluxing clusters of human beings and their occasional pets, wandering the colossus structure that would rival temples and ancient mortal forums. I gazed at the blatant and shameless adverts of "new" products and "sales" of old ones, and merely chuckled under my breath. When ads weren't keeping my attention, my eyes locked onto the various logos of various sales establishments, specialty centers, and even confectionary booths that sold food ranging from pizza to fries. I was becoming mesmerized as I continued to let my eyes wander and lead me around. Before long, I began to move with the flow, feeling a sense of peace, and let the colors of the mall blend together as I kept moving. It was almost as if I was shifting into a dream world, as the whole place began to seem less real to me. I felt like I was about to lose myself.

It wasn't until I felt a hand on my shoulder, which snapped me out of my sleepless trance. I turned around and faced two familiar, but rather unwelcome, faces.

"Damion, darling," the tall one said, "Glad we could catch you here, of all places. You're a very allusive boy, you know, and I didn't know you were an ice cream man."

I viewed my immediate surroundings, and noticed I wandered into the fashion district of the mall. I also realized I picked up a sundae somewhere along the way. The fact that it was strawberry made me smile a little, but my mood turned when the two Crust cousins continued to occupy the space before me. I frowned at those two eye sores. "Perhaps I wanted to remain that way... and I like strawberry," I stated, with a tone of offence.

They chuckled, either oblivious to my hostility or simply didn't care. "Everybody wants to be seen. You're only lying to yourself if you say you don't, Damion."

"How do you know my name?" I asked, still apprehensive of their presence, "We've never met-"

"OFFICIALLY, we've never met, but it's hard not to know about you, Damion," The short one interjected, "Beating Jenny at her own game, parading yourself as a, quote unquote, normal boy, and still find a way to make yourself seem like more than what you seem to be. And, of course, OUR presence isn't exactly unknown to the people of Tremorton."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"Apologies," said the tall one, "allow us to formally introduce ourselves. I am Brittany LeZimz Crust, and this is my cousin, Tiffany DeGrosb Crust." They did a shoddy bowing impression, obviously and obnoxiously, trying to imitate "royal" behaviour. I rolled my eyes in irritation before they rose back up.

"And you," Tiffany Crust added, "are one of the few that deserve to be like us, because you are much more than the lame brains around here. This begs the question-"

"Why do you hang out with Carbuncle, Lee, and Wakemen, aka the dork, the nerd, and the dweeb-" Brittany interjected.

"When you COULD be around those like us," the short one said, as her cousin flipped her hair.

"People with class... People with style... People with ACTUAL sophistication," the other added.

I rolled my eyes. "Because I prefer to be around interesting and friendly company, rather than bland designer zombies," I answered, just to spite them.

I noticed the dissatisfaction they had in my answer, which made me feel a little better.

"Now," I added, "if you excuse me, I need to be somewhere not reeking of obsessive self pride."

I was about to leave, when suddenly the tall one obstructed my path and spoke up, "NOT... so fast, Damion."

My eyes narrowed. I wasn't in the mood for this tripe at that time, and it didn't help that they were now deliberately blocking my path.

"There IS a reason why we wanted to speak to you, and there is no way we will let you leave without telling you that reason." She said with a commanding voice.

_LET me leave?_ I thought. _I'll leave if and when I DAMN well feel like it, even if I have to leave behind a bloody mess, you arrogant creatures_. My fist clenched, but I hesitated, and thought about it for a moment. If I maimed them in any way, it would violate my code of conduct. Yes, our rule states we are to execute mortals if they are subjected to exposing us in any way, but aside from that, we Netherworld demons are strictly forbidden from harming mortals on purpose... no matter how despicable they may be. Besides, if I attacked them for their insolence, chances are that I might also drop my "sudden strawberry sundae", and that's simply not worth maiming a couple of prissy twits.

I unclenched my fist. "Then speak, before I lose my patience with you two."

A smile crept across the tall one's face, "I like a man that likes to take charge."

I metaphorically gagged at the comment.

"I'm sure you've heard of the BAHRAM dance that's coming up, and I'm sure with your aloof attitude, you've failed to ask a single girl out, which means you're available."

The Crust placed her hands on my shoulders, and got uncomfortably close to me.

"What I'm asking you is this. Will you take me and Tiff to the BAHRAM dance? Do note that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity, and WILL skyrocket your popularity amongst the student body and, dare I say, the rest of Tremorton."

I took her hands off my shoulders, looked deep into her eyes, and said with a confident smile, "No."

Her speechless and gaping bucked tooth maw gave me my cue to leave them behind. As I departed, I could hear them curse at me for my conviction, but vow that they would have their way one way or another.

As I began heading for the exit of the mall, I recapped on the two VERY valuable things I learned today. The first was that I should ALWAYS be alert and sharp to my surroundings, and to NEVER let myself wander, lest I be found by something wicked once again. The second lesson I recapped on is that the term "monster" is simply a matter of opinion and perspective, and the prideful, arrogant, and demanding nature of those two mortals proved that in spades.

On the upside despite my abysmal encounter, when I fished a small scoop of my sundae with the spoon that was included with it, the strawberry taste reminded me of home. I smiled.

* * *

Sunday, 11:30 AM. I arrived at Sheldon's humble little garage, backpack slung over my shoulder, posing in my disguise. I knocked on his door.

I heard a click from behind the door as it creaked open slightly. "Come in, come in. We've got quite a bit to do and very little time."

I walked in and shut the door behind me. He was standing at the back wall, doing some last minute work on what seemed like the device I was doomed to wear today. I noticed a few other brand new machines sitting on his desk. I was about to ask, but I figured that they had some connection to the machine.

"Ah, here we go," he said, sounding like he had a humble little "eureka" moment. He took off his gear (gloves, safety goggles, and a fireproof apron), and picked up his device. When I got a good look at it, it was everything I was dreading it would be. It looked like full torso leather belts, laced with wiring, and fitted with a few censors on the bondage itself. Just looking at it reminded me of those hellishly lustful ancestors of ours, and I quivered in disgust.

"That looks," I said, pausing for a moment, still looking at the abomination, "... tight."

"Well, it better be," he said, "It has to stay on you for the duration of the fight, or at least until it can gather enough data."

"Then, all I need is a couple direct shots from her."

"Almost," he said, handing me the gear, "You still need to put up a decent show. If you don't, she'll catch on and might figure out who you are. And if that happens, it will blow your cover and everything you worked for thus far."

I noticed the Cheshire grin on his face, as if what he just said was mocking me, "Are you making fun of me?" I asked

"Put on the gear," he said, changing the subject,"We need to test this bad-boy out, and make sure that I can get a remote reading from it."

I sighed, begrudgingly, and turned off my camo. I then removed my torso armour, and set it off to the side. Picking up the device, I stared at for a moment, couldn't believe I was going through with this, and slide the device on me.

It was tight, uncomfortable, and it felt like I just had a leash put on me.

"When this is done," I said to Sheldon, "I get to obliterate this unwelcome contraption."

"Oh, don't be such a baby, Damion. It's just a couple of cow-hide belts with pressure panels," he replied, "... sewn and welded together in a way that looks like S&M gear." He chuckled lightly.

My eyes narrowed at him, not happy with his shot at me.

"Just test the damn thing."

"Geez," he said, picking up what looked like a pole with a large fisted glove fastened to the top end. "You don't need to be so... up_tight_ about it. Don't have a _cow_, man."

I rolled my eyes at the puns at my expense.

He held the pole like a spear, and with a heave, he trusted gloved end of it at me with all his might. I barely flinched. The machine on the bench started buzzing, and coming up with a numerical reading with a data print out. Sheldon set the pole off to the side, and went over to said machine, and viewed the results onscreen and on the paper.

"Hmm, this doesn't seem right... the numerical reading is way too weak," Sheldon said.

"What's your result?" I asked.

"42."

I rolled my eyes, and then smacked the device on my chest with a quick jab. The machine on the bench came up with a new reading.

"And, what's mine?" I asked again.

I could see his eyes bulge in shock. "Uhm... you're reading is 267... That's... really impressive."

"It's rather average for creatures like us."

"All demons are at least that strong?"

"Yes, and angels too."

Sheldon nodded, probably remembering one of our previous conversations. He took the paper results and tossed them into a trash can, then reset the program in the device.

"Alright," I said, "so this thing works. How will we keep it from sticking out like a sore thumb?"

"Way ahead of you," he said, bringing out a remote, pressing the only button on it. The device, and the belts, then faded away. "I told you I could make camo for it, didn't I?"

"Yeah, well," I said as I put on my armour once again, "it's STILL very uncomfortable."

"I'd fix that, but we don't exactly have time to alter it accordingly, we'll just have to make do with the practicality and functionality of it."

I shifted a little in my armour, and looked at the clock. I had a good four hours more before "ShowTime". After I turned on my disguise, I waved goodbye to Sheldon and headed out for the town, to kill as much time as I could, as well as get used to wearing restraining uncomfortably tight gear.

"Why would anyone WANT to wear something like this?" I muttered to myself.


End file.
